Book picks similar to
Late City Summer by Jeanette Bears


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City of Fallen Angels


Paul Buchanan - 2020
    A scorching heatwave is suffocating L.A. PI John Keegan is offered a small fortune to find a beautiful woman from a set of photographs. He refuses; the job seems suspicious.But the next day the same woman, Eve, turns up, unbidden, on his doorstep. Eve fears for her safety. She is being watched. Before Keegan knows it, someone has been killed with Keegan s own gun, and he gets sucked into a world of suspicion and betrayal where he s never quite sure where the truth lies. Before long he s the prime suspect in a murder he didn't commit, and all the evidence seems to point in his direction.It s almost like someone planned it that way.

Give in to Me


Elle Spencer - 2021
    First up was the very public divorce from an A-list actress, and then the third book in her popular suspense series bombed. She’s got a chronic case of writer’s block and feels like a fraud getting paid to give speeches about achieving success. After a particularly disastrous event, Whitney’s manager suggests a romantic distraction might be in order.Gabriela Talbot never expected to hear back when she requested an interview with her favorite author—certainly not after the scathing review she’d given Whitney’s latest book. She’s thrilled when the opportunity arises.What happens next isn’t what either expected, and although passions flare, Whitney is furious when she learns she’s slept with the enemy. Their already rocky road to friendship—or something more—is complicated by a pair of Hollywood handlers who don’t particularly care what’s best for either of them. Will they find their way to love or will insecurities and outsiders prove too much to overcome?

Earthbound Bones


ReGina Welling - 2016
    Not quite human, yet not fully an angel, the best thing the PTBs can think to do with her is bounce her around so she can solve supernatural problems. Ghosts that need to find their way home or that purposefully take the wrong path are her bread and butter. To add insult to injury, she is assigned a fledgling pair of guardian angels to train. Julius and Estelle are ready and willing to learn, but they also have a secondary agenda. One that Galmadriel is never supposed find out about. Helping the ghost of young Ben Allen find his way home reconnects Galmadriel with Kat, Amethyst, Gustavia, and Julie in the first of many adventures to come.

The Diamond Courier


Hannah Byron - 2020
    But her aspirations as a political journalist are thwarted when she is instead sent to a finishing school in Switzerland in the summer of 1939. On her way to Lausanne she meets Leo Oppenheim in Paris. He is not only the leader of the British communist party but also the prodigal son of Chaim Oppenheim, London’s richest diamond merchant. Lili’s time at the posh Swiss school even becomes bearable knowing Leo will take her under his wing. The Second World War breaks out and Lili ends up in London, finally indulging in free love and communism. But Leopold needs money, for his personal needs and for the communist party. He has his eye on the largest diamond centre in Europe: Antwerp. However, Germany, too, is in dire need of Antwerp’s diamonds for its war industry. Lili infiltrates in Antwerp’s Jewish community and befriends both the Goldmunz family and the German military commander Ulrich Lemberg. She becomes the diamond courier between Antwerp and London via Vichy France.Until she is caught in 1943 … The Diamond Courier is a young woman’s fight to liberate herself from her privileged upbringing, for which she pays the highest price. Will she ultimately choose politics over love?

Hairpin Curves


Elia Winters - 2020
    Now a wedding invitation lures her to Quebec…in February. When her ex-friend Scarlett offers to be her plus-one (yeah, that’s a whole story) and suggests they turn the journey into an epic road trip, Megan reluctantly agrees to the biggest adventure of her life.A week together in a car is a surefire way to kill a crush, and Scarlett Andrews has had a big one on Megan for years. The important thing is fixing their friendship.As the miles roll away, what starts as harmless road-trip games and rest-stop dares escalates into something like intimacy. And when a surprise snowstorm forces Megan and Scarlett to hunker down without the open road as distraction, they’ve got a bigger challenge than making it to the church on time: facing the true nature of their feelings for each other.Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.

Not Over You (Sons of Cape Cod)


Jodi Payne - 2021
    Scott barely gave Falmouth a second thought once he was in California, but he’s never been able to get Jarlath completely out of his mind.Jarlath O’Connolly now owns his late father’s pub in Falmouth Heights. O’Connolly’s pub is part of the heartbeat of his hometown and its walls hold the memories of everything he’s ever loved. Everything except his best friend, Scott. Scott was easy to replace with a new bartender, but there was no replacing Scott in Jarlath’s heart.The summer is ending, there’s a hurricane in the forecast, and Scott’s finally come home, but Jarlath isn’t sure he’s ready for the reunion. A lot has changed, including Jarlath’s understanding of who Scott really was to him. Will they still find each other hard to get over once they’re face to face?

The Last First Kiss


Julie Cannon - 2021
    Kelly’s bound and determined to experience everything, and everyone, the island has to offer.Matt Parker is on her first “real grown up” vacation since her wife died six years ago, leaving her to raise their young son alone. With no responsibilities to tie her down, Matt’s not looking for anything other than a good time and toe-curling, no strings attached sex.Neither one expects to meet the woman who could give them their last first kiss.

Finn (Adorkable Love, #6)


Brynn Hale - 2020
    Specifically, old cars. His company restores and modifies classics, especially muscle cars, to their former glory.Too bad, there's one thing from the past that can't be brought back, even if he wishes she could.But on a Friday drive home, a car off to the side of the road returns dreams and wishes to his head.She's back.This time he's not letting her go, even if it means fixing the one thing in life that might change the past.Shelby's life never turned out to the way she wanted, but not for lack of trying.There was always something missing. Something not right.But when her car breaks down and her past steps from a pickup truck, she's nineteen again with all those feelings rushing over here.Is this second chance the one chance she has to make things right and can she let go of fears of not being enough to take the chance?Find out in this adorkable love story of an alpha geek and a curvy woman, today!

The Body Painter


Pepper Winters - 2019
    Must also enjoy being studied while naked in a crowd.”The fourth made me shudder.“Call or email ‘YOUR SKIN, HIS CANVAS’ if interested in applying.”The final made my heart race.I should’ve kept scrolling past the advertisement.I should’ve applied for the boring receptionist job at minimum wage.I should’ve clicked on any other job where I got to keep my clothes on.But I didn’t.I applied.My interview is tomorrow…

Calumet


Ali Vali - 2021
    She’s now a popular English lit professor. Life is good. Really. The only problem is the invite in her mailbox. Who in their right mind has a fifteen-year high school reunion?Iris Long’s days are predictable. She did the safe thing and married the high school quarterback. While her life isn’t a grand love affair, it’s comfortable, and as the secretary at the local high school, she can see her daughter and son throughout the day. Her family is great, but Iris longs for the one person she can’t have.Jaxon comes back to town amid gossip that started sixteen years earlier and never really died down. After crushing on Iris in high school, seeing her again is a welcome surprise. But it’s Iris’s daughter, Sean, whose dark hair, blue eyes, and brilliant mind are startlingly like Jaxon’s own who exposes scars from small town secrets.Jaxon has been kept in the dark by those she loves most, including Iris. But when the truth is finally revealed, will she leave for good?

The Thousand Mile Love Story


Natalie Vivien - 2013
    A decade ago, her heart was broken by a devastatingly beautiful woman–the woman she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. Now, ten years later, two of her oldest friends, Elizabeth and Heather, are getting married in Vermont. And they have a request: They want the old gang to take that infamous road trip they always talked about in college but never set into motion.The brides’ not-so-secret goal: to enable Andee and her ex, Robin Barnes, to finally patch things up.So, four college friends hop in a green convertible and begin a thousand-mile road trip that Andee isn’t quite sure she’ll survive. They visit the strangest places and encounter some wild adventures, and throughout it all, Andee struggles to come to terms with her conflicting feelings for Robin.Because, despite her misgivings, Andee is falling in love with Robin all over again.This is the complete collection of the three “Thousand Mile Love Story” novellas about two women who reconnect, forgive and forget, and love again; and the funny mishaps a thousand-mile road trip can bring. It contains “Road Trip Reunion,” “Roadside Attractions” and “Destination: Love,” and is approximately 70,000 words long (the length of a novel, providing many hours or a few days of romantic reading).

The Beginning of Everything


Cara Malone - 2020
    A fearless activist in San Francisco. A love so powerful it can change the world.Betty wants what everyone wants – happiness, security, and a quiet, good life. She’s determined to make that happen on her own, despite her mother’s fears that she’ll turn into a spinster if she doesn’t settle down and find a husband soon.Joan wants an important life – one where she gets to love who she wants to love, do what she enjoys, and will leave the world a better place when she’s gone. But what she is – a lesbian in San Francisco at the beginning of the LGBT+ civil rights movement – is criminal.When Betty comes to California for vacation, it’s love at first sight across a crowded bar in the Tenderloin district. She’s mesmerized by Joan and drawn to the homophile movement, but does she have the courage to come out for love and join the fight for equality?What began as a glance across a room turns into a hopeful, playful and heartwarming courtship across three time zones and four decades in The Beginning of Everything, a standalone historical romance by Cara Malone.

Lady Luck and the Lyon


Chasity Bowlin - 2022
    unusually. Welcome to the world of THE LYON'S DEN: The Black Widow of Whitehall Connected World, where the underground of Regency London thrives... and loves.Kissing her had been a terrible miscalculation on his part. But laughing with her, finding something to enjoy about being in her company, that could well be an unmitigated disaster.Welcome to the next Lyon's Den book by USA Today Bestselling author Chasity Bowlin!Garrick Bancroft, Viscount Lynley, is in dire need of both a wife and a fortune. He thought he’d found the perfect woman to fulfill both very nicely. But just days before they were to marry, she fled to Scotland in the arms of her younger brother’s tutor. Left high and dry, there’s only one option—Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon, London’s most notorious matchmaker. With desperation as his constant companion, Garrick informs her that any young lady will do…so long as she has the appropriate accompanying fortune.Miss Ellis Lockhart is in a terrible situation. Embarking on her fourth season with not a prospect in sight, her sisters are beginning to turn on her. Her infamously tightfisted father has refused to have more than one daughter launched in society at any given time. Until she makes a match, her sisters must hover in the background—waiting as spinsterhood looms over them all. Out of desperation, she reaches out to Mrs. Dove-Lyon and begs for her assistance…anyone will do, so long as he is a gentleman of rank.There’s really only one problem and it becomes apparent when the duo meet at the church for their wedding—Garrick and Ellis are not unknown to one another. In fact, they rather hate one another. But with the help of a little luck, and the meddling of Mrs. Dove-Lyon, they might soon realize that the line between love and hate is a fine one, and a fiery one, indeed.

Black Box


Cassia Leo - 2014
    Their first encounter changes Mikki's life forever, but their second meeting leaves them both buried beneath the emotional wreckage of a violent attack. Mikki is left with more questions and grief than she can handle, while Crush is forced to forget the girl who saved his life.Now nineteen years old, Mikki Gladstone has decided she's tired of the mind-numbing meds. She books a flight to Los Angeles to end her life far away from her loving, though often distant, family.Twenty-one-year-old Crush has always channeled his blackest thoughts into his music, but he's never had great aspirations. He decides to fly to Los Angeles to record a demo of the only song he's never performed in public; a song he wrote for a girl he doesn't even know: Black Box. He has no expectations of fame and he's never felt like his life had any purpose... until he meets Mikki in Terminal B.When Mikki and Crush cross paths for the third time in Terminal B, neither has any idea who the other person is; until they slowly piece together their history and realize that fate has more in store for them than just another love story.

Treacherous Legacy


Kathi Oram Peterson - 2021
    When an urgent summons arrives from her only living relative, Uncle Ezra, Anna drops everything to meet him in a café on the outskirts of Reykjavík, Iceland. Uncle Ezra sweeps her into a decades-old mystery as he explains that her great-grandfather, a famous Jewish artist, was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. He wants Anna to help him disprove the lie and expose the truth. But they can trust no one. Any skepticism Anna may have harbored disappears when her uncle is shot. Barely alive, he utters one final word: “Run.” Though he met Ezra only briefly, journalist Kristofer Tómasson knows the information the old man passed on to his niece is likely the reason he was murdered. Now his niece’s life is also in peril. Despite the danger, Kristofer approaches Anna with an offer to help in exchange for an exclusive story. United by a common goal, as well as an undeniable spark of attraction, Anna and Kristofer race to uncover the mysteries of the past—that is, if they survive.