As soon as Jace left, Emily couldn’t get the idea out of her mind to visit the site of the two men’s drowning. She often went out in the field for things related to work. But this time it was personal. She considered asking for a day or two off work, but they were swamped. And seriously so. Now was not a good time. It was never a good time for a death in the family, though they were no longer family. She’d had no contact with them since she broke off the relationships with each of the three men. Although she hurt for the family, those weren’t close deaths as far as the company was concerned. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t well within the scope of her job to take a look at the accident site. She burrowed deeper into the files. The more work she got done the better. She could leave early if she got something more accomplished. By the time she lifted her head, it was late already. She groaned and looked outside. Being summertime, the sun was still above the trees. It’d probably take close to an hour to get to the river location….

Excerpt Candy was starting to figure out Jared was a whole lot of masculine bluster. Beneath the cool stare and the cutting words he sometimes tossed off, he had feelings. Twenty minutes later when she walked into his condo, she realized those feelings included being really doggone romantic. He had recreated her idea of a perfect evening, right down to his own addition of a fire popping warmly in the fireplace. Oh, Lord. If she hadn’t been on the edge before—taking in the table set for two, the chilling wine, and the scented candles burning did her in for sure. It felt almost like she was falling for Jared. Which was insane, since she was supposed to be using him just for the purpose of having some romping good sex. But the stupid man had gone and actually listened to what she had said when she’d been talking. She wasn’t sure any man besides her stepfather had ever actually heard a single word she’d said outside of work related topics. Her ex-husband sure in the heck never had. “Oh, Jared, you didn’t have to go to so much trouble.” But she was sure glad he had. “It wasn’t any trouble.”…

More and more, stories centering on MOGAI characters have been appearing in young adult fiction, something I am exceedingly happy about. Solid, respectful, and accurate MOGAI—which stands for Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments, and Intersex—representation is incredibly important, and here are five reasons why. Fiction should be a reflection of the world both as it is and as it could be. It’s not yet a universal facet of literature, though. Readers have been subconsciously trained by books and society to apply a “default” description to characters, so much so that unless an author takes special care to describe and define each person’s characteristics—whether that’s race, orientation, religion, ethnicity, or other—we assume they’re a white, heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied individual. Contemporary and historical novels can so easily incorporate the truth about the existence of people of color or those on the MOGAI spectrum. Fantasy and science-fiction worlds are capable of showing us what humanity could look like if it released its prejudices fell away. If books began to reflect the truly beautiful diversity of the world we live in, this “default” would begin to break down. Or we can hope it would help this happen over time, at least. Many teenagers are searching…