Melissa Brayden is an author of lesbian romance. Her characters are typically in their twenties or thirties, and often contend with professional challenges in addition to romantic ones. Characters from previous books occasionally pop up or are mentioned later.
Works:
- Waiting in the Wings
- Heart Block
- How Sweet It Is
- Kiss the Girl
- Just Three Words
- Ready or Not
- Firework
- First Position
- Strawberry Summer
- Eyes Like Those
- Hearts Like Hers
- Sparks Like Ours
- Love Like This
- Beautiful Dreamer
- Back to September
- To the Moon and Back
- Entangled
- Two to Tangle
- What a Tangled Web
- Marry Me (November 2021)
Tropes appearing in Melissa's works include:
- Age-Gap Romance: Brooklyn (28) and Jessica (38).
- Alone Among the Couples: Mallory has a bit of this before getting together with Hope, as Hunter/Sam and Brooklyn/Jessica happened in the previous books and Mal is the last single member of the group.
- Amicable Exes: Emory and Lucy are best friends, having dated years before only to realize they were too similar.
- Babies Ever After: Autumn and Kate get this, with twins, no less.
- Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Happens in every book. In a couple of cases, the main couple stay broken up for years.
- Bridal Carry: Hunter does this with Samantha because Sam is too freaked out by a mouse in the lobby of their building to enter. Culminates in Hunter suddenly kissing Sam and taking her up to their apartment to have sex.
- Cast Full of Gay: The Soho Loft series and Seven Shores series each revolve around a group of gay or bisexual women, and there are plenty of other gay folks in their orbit.
- Closet Key: Emory is this for Sarah in Heart Block, and Gia is one for Elle in Sparks Like Ours.
- Coming-Out Story: Sarah and Elle, noted in the Closet Key examples, have to navigate revealing their sexuality to their families.
- Commitment Issues: Brooklyn has serious issues stemming from her unhappy childhood.
- Competing with a Corpse: Jordan feels this way about her sister, Cassie, when she's dating Molly, Cassie's widow.
- Give Geeks a Chance: Well, certainly Sam feels she is a geek, being the bookish type who loves math and wears glasses. Hunter, however, thinks she's totally hot.
- Hands-On Approach: Hunter teaching Sam a yoga pose.
- Happily Ever After: Every book ends with one of these.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: Hadley is a lesbian who has two dads.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: This is one issue that makes Hunter and Sam (Just Three Words) gun-shy about getting together.
- Insecure Love Interest: Clementine, who has low self-esteem due to her trailer park background, is this to Madison.
- Ladykiller in Love: Hunter falls in love with Sam.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
- The Lost Lenore: Molly is still grieving for Cassie, her partner who died four years ago, when she begins to fall in love with Cassie's sister, Jordan.
- Matchmaker Failure: Sarah goes on a couple dates with James before breaking it off and getting together with Emory, and her mother subsequently invites James to a family get-together, doing everything she can to push them together and ignoring that Sarah is uninterested and deeply uncomfortable (and secretly trying to have her family get to know Emory, only for them to all but ignore her while focusing on the guy they've been led to believe is a potential future in-law).
- Office Romance: Hunter and Sam, who are business partners.
- Rivalry as Courtship: Elle and Gia, both being pro surfers competing for the number one spot in the rankings.
- Serenade Your Lover: Hunter does this for Sam.
- Sorry, I'm Gay: Hunter has a little fun with this when a guy hits on her.
- The Un-Favorite: Jordan (How Sweet it Is) is this to her older siblings, especially the now-deceased Cassie.
