The heat is on for Alyx Cruz as she struggles to find a balance between work and play... After a wild semester, the sisters of Beta Gamma Pi are worried that Alyx's partying is ruining their reputation on campus. When Alyx receives devastating news about her mom, and learns that because of her low grades her scholarship is on the line, she needs help fast. That's where tutor Cody Foxx comes in, a handsome grad student who's going to get Alyx through the challenges ahead—in school and out. But as director of the school play, Cody wants something in return: for Alyx to audition. It's going to be a year of hard work and tough emotions, but as Alyx faces her greatest fears, she just may get her act together in more ways than one...

A girl searches for the truth when two of her classmates are caught in the crosshairs of a murder mystery in this Edgar Award­–winning novel from Willo Davis Roberts.Cici expected the summer to be special. She had no idea it would change her life forever. Two kids, two lives, ruined before they even began. One, a girl, dead—strangled in an empty cabin. The other, a boy, spending the rest of his life in jail for her murder. To Cici, it all seems so unreal. These were kids she had grown up with, whom she had known. She can't believe Brody Shurik could have murdered Zoe Cyrek. Something's going on here, and Cici's going to find out exactly what it is. But Cici has an even harder time believing what she uncovers. Could the murderer really be someone close to her? Maybe even a member of her family? And if Cici's on the right track, could she become the murderer's target?

Tom Spanbauer's first novel in seven years is a love story triangle akin to The Marriage Plot and Freedom, only with a gay main character who charms gays and straights alike. I Loved You More is a rich, expansive tale of love, sex, and heartbreak, covering twenty-five years in the life of a striving, emotionally wounded writer. In New York, Ben forms a bond of love with his macho friend and foil, Hank. Years later in Portland, a now ill Ben falls for Ruth, who provides the care and devotion he needs, though they cannot find true happiness together. Then Hank reappears and meets Ruth, and real trouble starts. Set against a world of struggling artists, the underground sex scene of New York in the 1980s, the drab, confining Idaho of Ben's youth, and many places in between, I Loved You More is the author's most complex and wise novel to date.

### From Publishers Weekly Crooked hearts indeed. Both the hero and heroine of this fast-paced romp through California in the 1880s are so adept at lying and scheming that the narrative is more than half over before they--or the reader--know each other's true stories or real names. But Grace Russell and Reuben Jones are a pair of very likable rogues--good-hearted and good-humored 20-somethings whose disadvantaged pasts have virtually compelled them to resort to a succession of cons to survive life on the American frontier. When they meet on a San Francisco-bound stagecoach--she disguised as a nun soliciting money for African orphans and he posing as a wealthy blind scholar--sparks fly but are quickly dampened as each recognizes in the other a kindred spirit perpetually on the make. Nonetheless, they join forces to defraud a mysterious Chinatown crimelord, who, being neither trustworthy nor nice, makes their lives complicated, dangerous and increasingly intertwined. The ensuing story line is so convoluted that it is nearly impossible to follow, but most readers will be willing to muddle through, because the characters themselves truly are engaging and refreshingly unstereotypical. Grace is independent and sexually liberated but never brassy, while Reuben struggles valiantly to project the bravura of a Wild West hero but readily admits to a deep fear of knives and a decidedly unmacho passion for wine collecting. Their sexual encounters are sweetly erotic, and their hopes, fears and desires ring true. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### Review “[A] fast-paced romp through California in the 1880s . . . the characters themselves truly are engaging and refreshingly unstereotypical. . . . Their sexual encounters are sweetly erotic, and their hopes, fears and desires ring true.” —*Publishers Weekly*