Adult Summer Reading

Divorced and out of money, Dot gets a job at the newly opened Sangamon Ordnance Plant making bombs to support the nation's war effort in World War II. She quickly becomes romantically involved with a handsome German immigrant, who also has a job there. But soon her secret past becomes an obstacle to the relationship and Dot's licentious boss threatens to give her away if she does not yield to his advances. Set against the ethnically diverse town of Springfield, Illinois in the late 1940s, this novel explores the newly liberated women who worked in the plant as well as the discrimination faced by the many immigrants who lived in Springfield."--from back cover.

"During summer camp, two teens, Andrea and Chloe, find each other and fall in love, but like so many things at that age, their relationship falls apart. life moves on and so do they, but somehow life continues connecting them each with their pasts."--from back cover.

Chloe enters the ballroom as Andrea appears on the stairs. Andrea's heart darkens and shatters with every laugh and smile that caresses Chloe's face. Chloe's refusal to listen to what's in her heart leads Andrea down a dangerous path. Will Andrea rise or strike back?

The morning after was Alissa Adams's worst nightmare come true. Haunted at night by images of murder, she was afraid to sleep ... and even more afraid to wake. The light of day always revealed her visions to be horribly real. Not even the tender caresses and midnight kisses of lawman Kyle Stone could soothe her shattered nerves. What Alissa needed more than Kyle's passion was his trust.?But unless she could persuade him that she could predict the killer's next victim, the murders would go unsolved. And while Alissa could foresee the terrible fate of others, she couldn't possibly dream what fate had in store for her."--Goodreads.com

What happens in a world gone mad? Plenty! Most people are exterminated. From all lands between Peking and Washington there is a trial of death and destruction. How did this come to be? Poor countries have become prominent with backing from Communist China and the Russians. Missile sites appear in these parts of the world. China keeps waiting for a new missile delivery system being developed by the soviets. The plan is to blow America off the earth. Successive explosions throughout the world did occur causing mass destruction and the eradication of many families. Several surviving groups include a wealthy Chicago family, one notorious bank robber, a California father and his attractive daughter, and a carrer military man. The Colorado Mountains eventually become their home. Their trials take them through many desolate cities where many lives were lost and thousands of skeletons remain. There are love triangles and children brought into this world. One member leaves this group but leaves instructions in his lock box. Life goes on_____________________

Echo Middleton's brother, Tom, is killed in the service to his country and Daniel Sycamore is murdered at a service station. Twenty-seven years later, Echo pursued writing a book on the causes and effects of Daniel's demise. Yet, the endeavor serves to revitalize dormant acrimony over Tom's death, until a hidden secret, an eternal verity, is revealed.

When your kingdom is built on lies, it is destined to burn.

 

In a kingdom where legends of dragonriders conquering the lands are taught as history and libraries were burned by past kings, the truth will be just as dangerous as any sword.

 

That is, if anyone could untangle the lies intertwined with the truth and stay allied long enough to live.

 

Centuries ago, war tore the countries of Victarius apart and reforged them into six united kingdoms under one throne and one church.

 

Penance, prosperity, and forgiveness were offered during this rebirth, so long as the people remained united and obeyed their Divine Destinies- life paths designed by the stars they were born under and a holy calling that would save the kingdom from collapsing ever again.

 

But peace and civility can only last so long. And lies cannot be hidden forever.

 

In the night, High Scholars and Royal Advisors have met their end through blade and blood and citizens have grown timorous as the deaths continue with answers unsatisfactory to their anxious minds.

 

Rumors begin to spread about the truth of the Six Kingdom's history and who is behind the slayings; whispered tales of the king himself and vindictive rebels alike sharing in the slaughter. A once obedient and loyal people now stand in streets and pub rooms openly questioning what they have been assured of by the very government that swore to protect and serve them.

 

A government that benefits greatly from its people remaining obedient to the beliefs the church and state sold as truth when the continent was on the edge of collapse and their power on the brink of falling apart.

 

Now face-to-face with the truth of the fallacies they had grown in comfort with for generations, leaders throughout the Six Kingdoms must form alliances, settle differences, and take action to fight for justice, or for power.

 

 

 

 

 

As we've just seen, it's only a matter of timeand not that long a timebefore the United States elects its first female president. Which will make her husbandwhat? Well, if he's the ex-cop who solved the murder of the president's first husband and brought the killers to justice]]and if he's not the kind of guy to stand on formality]]and if he doesn't want to be the head of the FBI]]and if he takes out a license and becomes the first private eye to live in the White House]] That would make him The President's Henchman. Jim McGill's first case is to find out who is stalking a member of the White House press corps, before that stalker turns the tables on McGill and maybe even threatens the president herself. He also has to be a shadow adviser to a young Air Force investigator who is looking into a he-said-she-said charge of adultery leveled against a female colonel working at the Pentagon, a case with the potential to derail the new president's administration before it has a chanc

As President Patricia Grant nears the end of her second term, three big questions hang heavy in the air: Who will succeed her as the next president: her vice president, Jean Morrissey, or Senate Majority Leader Oren Worth? After a Navy warship shoots down two Chinese fighter jets, how far will hostilities with China go? And, of the utmost personal importance to Patti Grant, will her husband and henchman, Jim McGill, live to see the end of her presidency?

McGill is targeted by a cluster of killers known as los muertos, working under the direction of an enigmatic contract assassin called Taps. So McGill summons his colleagues -- the private detectives who will staff his newly expanded firm, McGill Investigations International -- to help keep him alive and kicking.

They're soon put to the test when an ambush and ensuing fire-fight shatter the peace of the posh Washington neighborhood of Georgetown. Undeterred, McGill and his colleagues continue the hunt, leading to a climax that leaves McGill fighting tooth-and-nail for his life.

Once in a lifetime, a man may find himself in a desperate battle for everything he holds dear. But in this powerful, explosive, utterly unforgettable new thriller, that all-out war has come twice for John Fortunato. Once for his country--and now to save his hometown and the woman he loves.

Twenty-five years ago John Fortunato was a soldier in Vietnam, fighting in the crushing darkness of the tunnels of Cu Chi, from which the Vietcong launched their deadliest operations. When he got back to his hometown of Elk River, Illinois, he secretly re-created those hellish tunnels. Partly a memorial, partly a kind of exorcism, they now lie hidden beneath the town's peaceful streets. John traded his M-16 rifle for a Nikon camera and built a career as a successful photographer. He thought he had put the war and the bloodshed behind him, but a powerful new enemy has other plans for John Fortunato.

On a quiet April night, Fortunato witnesses the brutal sidewalk shooting of an innocent man. The vicious crime is but the first assault in a struggle that will erupt into a full-scale battle for control of Elk River, a struggle that will divide neighbors and tear families apart.

On one side is a tough, beautiful labor lawyer; on the other is a man who will stop at nothing to control the entire town. And on the front line is John Fortunato, whose secret tunnels will provide the battleground for his own war, a war that revives the killing grounds of Cu Chi in a way he could never have imagined. But as everyone is about to learn, when this veteran warrior goes down, he's just begun to fight.

From the terrible intimacy of tunnel combat below the steaming jungles of Vietnam, to the brutal battles on the streets of the American heartland, to the unyielding courage of a man and woman prepared to sacrifice everything to make a dream come true, Digger is a harrowing, powerfully written novel that breaks all the rules.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. Albert Einstein. Time spent with cats is never wasted. Sigmund Freud In this, the second book in the series, Saga of Wolf, our heroine, Catalina Bast, attempts to get her start as a private investigator in the surly streets of Chicago. Only two things stand in her way, one Romulus MacBain, and the whims of time. Time . . . Romulus-determined to be at her side no matter what-follows her into the unknown. Guided by the cryptic advice of an old, homeless soothsayer with a food-stained, greasy map, our travelers set off. Time becomes key, but time is fickle. Time waits for no man-or does it? When the adventure ends, Catalina must come to terms with the truth behind her strange connection with Romulus-and the unfolding mystery of their two families' shared ancient history. Time is running out, and lives are at stake. The old soothsayer, Sylvia, does not find the same stability in time as most people. She is not bound by its rules. As she sees the past, the present, and the future coming together as one, she knows it is the time of the witches. With a call through the ages, she brings them into Catalina's new reality. The truth must out, but as James Joyce once wrote, "Time is, time was, but time shall be no more." Time is running out.

Catalina Bast, a bright young woman with special gifts, has a chance meeting with a loup-garu that forever changes her life. Sensing the man within the wolf, she helps him escape trouble; only to find a link to him neither can explain. Romulus MacBain, a mysterious man with a dark history, is a member of a clan of hereditary werewolves, a species of people who have lived in reclusive obscurity for hundreds of years. As he parts ways with Cat, he feels as if he is letting go of something vital. It isn't until years later, when a young female member of his family goes missing, that Rom chances to meet her again. Now a Chicago policewoman, Cat is on the same trail, searching for a criminal known to traffic in human flesh. She helps to save Rom's little cousin. In return, he saves Cat'slife. When she is near death from a gunshot wound, he sets himself as her personal bodyguard, vowing to protect her from the criminal who would see her dead. This, the first book in the series, Saga of the Wolf, To Thine Own Self be True, takes you on a wild ride of adventure, terror, and the exploration of long-hidden secrets in the lives of Catalina Bast and Romulus MacBain.

Written from a black man's point of view, this human drama encompasses the paradoxes of being a soldier in war and a civilian returned to society. A hard-working, God-fearing 25-year-old when he left his home to fight in Vietnam, Johnny Douglas said goodbye to his mother and wife and promised he would return -- alive and well -- in a year. But 13 months in the jungles of Vietnam took a toll, and in a world of kill-or-be-killed, nothing could have prepared Johnny for the brutality he faced. Upon his return to the United States, his family soon recognizes that wartime survival comes at a price as the once-clear distinction between the streets of home and the jungles of Vietnam become blurred and war rages inside Johnny's head.

Charlie Birger's legend might have begun the day the sheriff allowed him to keep his Tommy gun in the jail cell with him. Or it might have begun the year he teamed up with the notorious Shelton Gang to fight a bloody war against Glenn Young and his 3,000 Ku Klux Klan members.Others might say it was how he lived his life, or, more importantly, how he ultimately died. No matter the reasons for Charlie's fame, everyone agrees he left behind a trail of gruesome corpses. This novel is based on the incredible true story of the Shelton and Birger Gangs who built bootlegging empires that rivaled anything found in Al Capone's Chicago during the prohibition years of the 1920s.

Who we are is not always who we must be to survive.
In 1898, Big Henry Stevens leads hundreds of African-American coal miners and their families from Alabama to Illinois. When they arrive, the miners learn the mine owners lied to them. Instead of good pay for honest work, they were strikebreakers crossing picket lines. With no money and nowhere to go, they were stuck.
Meanwhile, the fledgling United Mine Workers of America was prepared to do whatever was necessary to stop the unsuspecting miners--including murder.
Sundown Town is based on the true story of the resultant war between these two groups who simply wanted what they felt best for their families and friends.

SIXTEEN TONS carries you down into the dark, dirty and dangerous coal mines of the early 1900s, as Italian immigrant Antonio Vacca and his sons encounter cave-ins and fires deep below the earth's surface. The dangers above ground are equally deadly, as the men and women battle gun thugs, corrupt sheriffs and crooked politicians at Virden, Matewan and Ludlow in an epic struggle to form a union and make the mines a safer place to work. Historian Kevin Corley has fashioned a unique novel by interviewing retired miners, their wives and children across the country throughout Illinois. He has used these oral histories to fashion an honest, accurate portrait of life among the coal mining families. You will be moved by the dramatic events in the novel, which are all the more moving and inspiring, given their foundation among real individuals who walked through history. -- back cover.

Coal mine wars. That's what they called the long, bloody conflict between rival unions that tore apart families and communities throughout Illinois during the 1930s. Hot-headed Vinnie Vacca sides with the newly-formed Progressive Miners of America. His stubborn brother Bullo fights for the established United Mine Workers while the coal mine bosses hire Chicago gun thugs from the Capone mob to spread death and fear across the landscape. Vinnie and Bullo's father Antonio struggles to make peace within the family--and the community--as the unending bombings and gunfights kill too many too young. This bloody story is based on actual events that occurred throughout Illinois from 1933 to 1937.

A stunning sequel to Corley's acclaimed debut novel Sixteen Tons.

As if the summer of 1950 was not hot enough in Illinois, public temperament became feverish as the result of several murders that everyone suspected were linked to thriving, but illegal, gambling in the state. As the weeks unfolded, stakes soared for the folks who loved to roll the dice, the gangsters and a politically ambitious governor. Jake Brosky, the crack investigative reporter for the St. Louis World and an old hand in dealing with trouble in Illinois, was confident he could sort things out. Answers appeared easy enough at first, but Brosky started to suspicion there was more to the violence than met the eye. In order to get to the bottom of things, the crafty veteran discovered he needed to employ ever y reportorial trick in his book, and then some. Brosky had been on the trail of many scandals, but was never involved in a chase with a more surprising conclusion.

Jake Brosky, star investigative reporter, is on the hunt for a fugitive Nazi criminal who has found a safe haven in Illinois.

"Jake Brosky returns to center stage in his pursuit of the elusive Clarissa Monnet, a still beautiful but fading movie queen who has written a tell-all manuscript with dynamite revelations. Suppression of the manuscript heads a wish list of both powerful Illinoisans and the most infamous organized crimes figures in America in the 1950s. If things go far enough, the sanctity of Governor Elijah Sanderson's campaign for president faces a serious threat. Tracking Monnet takes Brosky to Hollywood and back as he resurrects her improbably life. A body floating in the Mississippi River, a high school yearbook, shameful past history and a return to Jake's life of sultry Sloan Dillard all are pieces of a puzzle tied to Clarissa. Brosky, the ace investigative reporter for the St. Louis World, had better get around the twists and turns and detours confronting him in the chase for Monnet. Nothing less than the fate of the former screen siren hangs in the balance."--from back cover.

A fiction novel about a governor's race in Illinois and the newspaper reporter who exposes criminal behavior at the highest level. Hard-charging Jake Brosky has made a living off his investigative reporting in the Prairie State. But, he's never encountered wholesale wrongdoing on the scale of the current governor's schemes. And to think, the powerful honcho is in the midst of a nationally watched campaign for reelection. His opponent is a folksy candidate from the lower part of the state, a homespun David tackling a political Goliath.Politicos fall like dominoes as Brosky brings one flagrant abuse of the public trust after another to the front pages of the St. Louis World. Along the way, the story line is peppered with an intriguing cast that includes a whistle blower calling himself the Badger, one of Jake's own favorite stool pigeons, a seductive gal filling a coveted governmental internship, crime lords in America and Marseilles and even a devious Spanish treasure hunter. And there's no forgetting a woman harboring a devastating secret while running a gift shop along historic Route 66.Surprise endings are a forte of Brosky's dogged pursuits. Before the climax this time around, Jake gains unprecedented insight into the cunning machinations taking a big state government off the track.This is the fourth in a popular series of novels featuring the character Jake Brosky.

The restless and often painful years of early manhood are the novelist's major concern in a study of two boys in a Middle Western college.

"The next chapter in the tale of Bree Aniston takes the impeccable fighting machine back into the underground world of MMA with a new plan: Fight Me -- luring "keyboard warriors" into the ring to prove they are as badass as they claim to be. Bree remains in the shadows of this project, but when a brass media figure sends a violent abuser her way, Breeze must don the mask once again to battle society's worst element ... and hopefully make it out alive."--from back of book.

A young couple, Barrett and Melanie Tucker are trapped inside a haunted house full of monsters and evil masterminds. The young couple try to escape with help from an unlikely friend.

In 1930, a group of kids made a deadly discovery which developed into a secret that would lie dormant for nearly 90 years. A century-old terror is growing. The monster is ready to be unleashed......and it's hungry.

How does a girl go from being an innocent five-year-old to the most dangerous fighter the UFC never saw? Meet Bree Aniston, the central character of PUMMELED, an action-drama that chronicles two decades in the tumultuous life of a girl forced to discover the limits of her strengths, both physically and mentally.Following the sudden death of her father, Bree is forced to grow up as her grief-stricken mother plunges into a world of alcoholism and domestic abuse with multiple men. When Bree is introduced to the world of mixed martial arts, she not only finds intrigue in the sport but discovers her own exceptional talents as a fighter. Dominating school fights with bullies leads to professional fight training, which eventually leads to the promise of Olympic glory. Soon, the outlet for her anger and appetite to fight guides Bree to the dangerous underground scene where she must mask her identity if she is to stay on course. Unfortunately, she discovers the mammoth challenge of forcing her troubled past to finally tap out.

"Despite being the most hunted fugitive in the galaxy, Zoe Fenning manages to create chaos for Elliot and the New Terran Empire before disappearing with a convoy of Rigellians and Progenitors to settle a new world"--Amazon.

The second volume of the epic New Terrans series!

After the events in Aurora Ascending, peace settled in the Orion Arm. But when ships sent to explore the Eagle Nebula in the Sagittarius Arm disappear, Elliot Greyjoy and his team uncover a deadly threat: automated defensive drones with the power to destroy entire fleets. Worse still, the AI controlling the drones has determined that humanity must be extinguished.

Elliot has been chosen to lead the combined forces of the Aetherian Empire, Canopan Empire, Rigellian Alliance, and unaligned planets against the new threat. These spherical drones, armed with powerful free electron lasers, have destroyed every ship sent to investigate their stronghold in the Eagle Nebula of the Sagittarius Arm. When they begin to construct an extermination fleet to wipe out humanity, the stakes couldn't be higher.

As Elliot and his allies prepare for a suicidal assault on the Sagittaron stronghold, one of their own goes rogue. Hailey Link, a humaniform android created using Aetherian and Canopan technology, steals a captured Sagittaron sphere and takes off on a seemingly suicidal mission. With the fate of the Orion arm resting on Elliot's shoulders and the odds stacked against them, can they overcome the Sagittaron threat before it's too late? And what is Hailey's true objective, and can she be trusted to save them all?

Meanwhile, Prince Consort Lys Calt and Willa Greyjoy must navigate the complex politics of their respective empires, while Admiral MacDougan and young Syn Calt, heir to the Canopan throne, work to develop new technologies and strategies to aid the fight. In this thrilling space opera sequel to Aurora Ascending, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

"Follow Elliot's adventures as he challenges the invincible fleet surrounding Aether. Vowing to destroy the Aetherian Emperor who shattered his homeworld, Elliot is joined by a beautiful telepath, a smartass computer, and an elite team of Terran military forces"--Amazon.

Lothar Face uses laboratory enhanced diseases to begin a gigantic depopulation of the world to follow his computer's model of an idyllic world environment. There is a massive sea and air battle over the Caribbean Sea. Williams is heroic and successful in a prototype jet, before the enemy downs him, and sends him towards certain death. But the powerful good witches are always there to protect him and all of us, as they also resist the powers of evil. The Medici and Pazzi witch families have been adversaries for centuries. Over four hundred years have passed since the Medici's conquered their enemies, and killed or put into exile their foes. Somehow, and some way, Cetta Pazzi escaped from her bewitched prison, and is set on revenge. The final sequence of events involving men and witches begins in the Galapagos where the countdown is underway. We hope they get there on time.

Witchcraft, murder, and revenge come together in this heart-pounding novel. "The River Witches" tells the tale of three witches from the Italian Medici family who come to America by ship in the early nineteenth century. Witches, of course, can live to be over a thousand years old. In this book, the vessel transporting them to New Orleans is captured by the pirate, Jean Lafitte. He falls in love with one of the witches, Anna. But this is just the beginning of a chilling and dangerous journey filled with revenge, mystery, and death...

After Jean falls in love with Anna, a crew member is enraged, and swears vengeance. Anna and Jean wed, and their son marries the third witch, Avery. Now, with tension rising, the witches find themselves deeply involved with mere mortal men. Murder and mayhem follow. A quest is begun. Now, over two hundred years later, the witches face their biggest challenge, and greatest peril. Prepare yourselves for a fascination exploration of witchcraft and humanity as the road leads to thrill, crime, anger, and fatal fates. As the witches are positioned to pursue their centuries old quest, their impact is both subliminal and terrifying. A novel unlike any other, "The River Witches" is sure to grab hold of you, and never quite let go.

When a sheriff's deputy is brutally murdered, fellow deputy Margaret Donovan his lover questions every choice she has made as her life spins out of control. Struggling to find meaning amidst chaos, she returns to the faith in which she was raised. A friendship with a local nun motivates Margaret to hand in her badge and gun and devote her life to the convent.

Poised to make her final profession and take the veil, Margaret learns of the murder of two students. Her former boss asks her to help him to solve the killings. Margaret soon links the recent murders and a thirty-year-old cold-case slaying of another Saint Dominic's student. She also realizes the first murder is entangled in a cover-up designed to protect some influential people.

Working to identify the killer, her burdens escalate. Another child is on the killer's hit list, and she finds the detective with whom she's working, Bill Templeton, falling in love with her. Realizing she makes bad choices more often then she would like, Margaret desperately attempts to solve the murders and reconcile her spiritual and secular lives. Only God knows where it will all end, but Margaret's faith and ultimately her love will lead her to the truth.

Me Inside is a-true-to-life story with a broad appeal. It's a family drama, speckled with just a touch of romance/coming out (but not angst-y) of mystery/intrigue.

It begins when Jeannie Baker's mother abandons her at a very young age, which turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to her. She's left alone with a father who provides a good childhood for her, with all the things she needs, from blue jeans that fit, to a hot breakfast, and to the steady and dependable life she's never had. Then when Jeannie is fifteen years old, a high school basketball star, with good friends and a happy future, her father is murdered...

Recommendations:
"Since her initial give to us of Nine Nights on the Windy Tree, twenty years ago, Martha Miller's wise presence on the literary scene has been all too rare. Me Inside marks a most welcome return in a story that will be especially embraced by today's LGBTQ generation."--Katherine Forrest, author of Curious Wine and the Kate Delafield mystery series.

County Judge Bertha Brannon’s life blows up when her partner of twelve years, police sergeant Toni Matulis, the love of her life, is killed during a domestic violence call gone bad. Bertha is still trying to accept what’s happened when she gets the first of several threatening phone calls. This is followed by one dangerous incident after the next, one dead body after the last. The police are no help, so Bertha starts her own investigation and learns that Toni was working on a case that no one wanted her to solve, a case of corruption that goes all the way to the top.
 

What do you do when you fall through the loopholes in the system and all you have to rely on are your own wits?

Lois and Sophie have scrambled and saved for years, planning for their retirement in Florida. But now they've lost it all, and Lois's sniper training from her long-ago service as an Army nurse leads to a desperate career choice.

When Detective Morgan Holiday is assigned to investigate a spate of sniper killings, it's just one more stress point in her already overburdened life. But as she grows increasingly solitary--coping with an Alzheimer's-plagued mother who refuses to be confined to a nursing home, and a police partner counting the days to retirement--she comes to realize that these murders may cut close to home.

A modern morality tale of justice, retribution, and women who refuse to be politely invisible.
 

A Story of Salvation begins in Spunky Point, Illinois where the protagonist, Mick Scott, and his two younger sisters live with their grandparents after their parents split up. Their violent, suicidal, alcoholic mother is ruled unfit by a family court to care for them. She blames the court's decision on her ex-husband, so she enlists the assistance of her violent new lover to exact revenge on him and the children, thinking that they conspired against her in court. As the three siblings grow into adulthood, they, along with their father, are forced to deal with their mother's lover's vicious attacks against them. After all is said and done, do they succeed in ending his evil reign of terror, or do they succumb to it?

The Forgiven begins with the tumultuous childhood of the protagonist and his experiences in the Vietnam War, both of which contribute to his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcoholism. Eventually, he overcomes these problems, and he learns to forgive his parents for their past transgressions. As time goes by, he becomes the owner of a landscaping business, which he sells to two Mexican brothers, and moves to southern Illinois, where he becomes an organic farmer. In the process, he is reunited with a former lover.

"Days of Rage" is the story of Mick Scott who, after returning home from the Vietnam War in 1968, attends school on the G.I. Bill at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. There he makes the acquaintance of David Gordon, the director of the controversial Vietnamese Studies Center; controversial because it is rumored to be affiliated with the CIA.

Scott soon concludes it is no rumor when Gordon recruits him to infiltrate the local Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in an effort to uncover a spy that has infiltrated the Center. As Gordon suspects, it is someone who is affiliated in some way (directly or indirectly) with the SDS.

Rachel and Bobby moved to Minnesota so that Rachel could be closer to her best friend Rory, and so that Bobby could leave behind his past in Illinois and start anew. But, one year later and their relationship is on rocky ground, as Rachel struggles with what she feels is the loos of her lesbian identity, and Bobby is plagued with jealousy. Meanwhile, Rory and Maggie are celebrating their second year of marriage together. Rory is ready to start a family, but Maggie is hesitant, as she wants to wait until her career is in a more stable place, which will happen when she achieves tenure. While one relationship is falling apart, another is growing stronger and expanding.

Lou Silver is a stage combat instructor by day, and teaches kung fu on the weekends. When Lou meets Staff Sergeant Stephanie "Steve" Adams through one of her kung fu students, Lou can't resist her instant attraction, even though Steve's military background stirs old resentments. As Steve battles to break down the walls around Lou's heart, Lou must come to terms with her past to give love a fighting chance.

Twenty-five-year-old theater grad student Rory Morgan walks into her Intro to Theater class expecting it to be a piece of cake. She isn't prepared for the diminutive little fireball of a professor who walks in. She is instantly captivated by Dr. Margaret Parks, her forty-year-old professor, and even works up the courage to flirt a little, which Dr. Parks quickly dismisses. After their first class, Rory finds herself thinking about the professor more and more and spends most of her class time watching the professor as she passionately does her job. Rory really wants to ask her out, but she doesn't know if the professor is even gay, to say nothing of the fact that she's her professor. What follows is a romance full of humor, passionate awakenings, and college politics. Can they overcome the hurdles that lie before them and still be a class act?