Book picks similar to
Heart in a Box by Ally Sky


second-chance
cheating
contemporary-romance
nope

Room 212


Kate Stewart - 2014
    Her only plans for life are to make no plans. She revels in her fascination of the unexpected as she navigates her way through mid -1990’s Dallas nightlife. One very bad night brings her face to face with the one man likely to change her mind about…well...everything.Twenty-three year old Seth Whitaker has every intention of seeing through with his well mapped out life. He is a hard working over-achiever that has no intentions of slowing his pace for anyone. With a fierce determination to not let life pass him by without taking a huge bite, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the one distraction that could keep him from his best laid plans. Little did he know his determination to keep his life on track would be the very thing to trigger the events that change the course of both their lives.In this life she had only done one thing right...and she was his only chance at salvation.*Explicit sex, strong language, some drug use. Can be read as a stand-alone.

27 Truths: Ava's Story


M.J. Fields - 2016
     Ava Links was raised seeing the different sides of love. The beautiful and the broken. Through it all, she knows the journey she is taking will lead her to the man she is destined to be with. The man she has always loved, Luke Lane. But as we know, there are no guarantees in this world, no promises that can not be broken, and no way you will know what tomorrow brings. **** A note for the readers**** At present time, this story is slated as a duet. In the writing process things change. This story has been begging to be told for two years. Although not necessary, The Love series, The Wrapped series, and The Burning Souls series can be read before The Truth About Love. This is not Steel or Caldwell, but at the core is a strong family just the same. It does not promise an HEA or laughs. This is heart, heat, and will evoke feelings that are not always pleasant. To the lovers of my first works. You have been patient. You have been... persistent. The wait is almost over. After you read this, please remember you asked for it. Love you anyways.

Knockout


Tracey Ward - 2014
    Sometimes it's about not giving up.Kellen Coulter has a way with women. A boxer from the wrong side of town, he worked his way through the wealthy daughters at Weston High with a brilliant smile, sweet words and vacant eyes. No one gets close. No one gets through. No one knows the secrets hiding inside.No one but me. I'm the only girl he's ever let in. The only one who has ever truly seen him. When we met I was just a kid, an old soul with an open ear and a full understanding of what it was to be misunderstood by everyone around you. But even I didn't know the demons sleeping inside him. Not until now.Not until it might be too late.*Due to language and sexual content, this book is not recommended for readers under 18.Knockout is told from Jenna's point of view with new elements of the story not covered in Brawler. Both Knockout and Brawler can be read independently of each other and in no particular order.

Ghosted


J.M. Darhower - 2017
    Through scandal after scandal, addiction on top of addiction, a flurry of paparazzi hunt him as he fights to conquer his demons.She's a single mother, assistant manager at a grocery store, existing in monotony with her five-year-old daughter. Every day when she goes to work, lurid tabloids surround her, the face of a notorious bad boy haunting her from their covers.A man and a woman, living vastly different lives, but that wasn't always the case. Once, they were just a boy and a girl who bonded over comic books and fell in love unexpectedly.When Kennedy Garfield met Jonathan Cunningham back in high school, she knew he had all the makings of a tragic hero. With stars in his eyes, and her heart on her sleeve, the pair ran away together to follow their dreams.But dreams, sometimes, turn into nightmares.Now, years later, the only thing they share is a daughter—one who has no idea her father plays her favorite superhero. But Jonathan is desperate to make amends, and at the top of his list is the woman who gave up everything for him and the little girl he hasn't yet met.

What Mattered Most


Linda Winfree - 2007
    Houston homicide detective, John OReilly, is torn between two women. One is the woman he's loved without hope for years. The other carries his unborn child. Now, a man bent on revenge wants OReilly to choose, and any choice he makes could cost him everything.Gutsy sheriffs deputy, Lanie Falconetti, is determined not to repeat her mother's mistakes in love. Her no-strings-attached affair with John OReilly leads to an unexpected but joyfully welcomed pregnancy. However, the shadow from John's past threatens not only her chance at happiness but her life and that of her unborn baby as well.Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, violence.

Against All Odds


Angie McKeon - 2014
    Our hearts broken... Our souls torn to pieces...He was my world, my whole life. My reason for breathing. I had a perfect marriage, a baby on the way, and I felt fulfilled—almost invincible. Until the day life hit, leaving me broken, vulnerable, and alone.She was my life. My ray of hope on the cloudiest day. With her, I thought I had the ultimate safety. A love that would never hurt or betray me. I gave her my heart, my body, and my soul. Until she broke me, destroying every dream and illusion I had about life, love, and marriage.In our grief, we made a mistake. A mistake I'm not sure we can come back from.

Then There Was You


Claire Contreras - 2018
    Love is about walking to the edge of the cliff and taking the leap together.Timing was never on our side.My first mistake was hooking up with my best friend.My second came years later, when we met again, and I fell for her. My third was letting her go, because I had to. Because a love like this wasn't built to withstand the winds coming in our direction.Love and timing.I didn't believe in either. Then there was you . . .

Virtue & Vanity


Astrid Jane Ray - 2016
    On the surface, her rich and beautiful husband is the embodiment of every girl’s dream, but Isabelle will learn just how deceiving looks can be. By the time she discovers there is real danger hidden behind those captivating green eyes and thick layers of sophisticated appearance, it is too late to escape Sebastian’s cruelty. Without a thread of compassion, he shows her the true meaning of hell, making it abundantly clear her fragile feelings mean nothing to him. But life has strange ways of playing with one’s fate. In an intriguing turn of events, the same man who had once shattered her to pieces, suddenly starts treating her with extreme care and swears there will be no more pain. Isabelle has been tricked too many times to believe him, but the devil she bargained with refuses to give up on his mission to earn her forgiveness as well as her heart. While Sebastian unfolds from a monster into Prince Charming right before her eyes, Isabelle finds herself falling under his spell and getting closer to making a choice that might be fatal for both of them.

Ten


Ker Dukey - 2015
    The forbidden love between his best friend and me was just that… forbidden. Our families were from different walks of life and as a sheriff’s daughter being with a Moore’s kid would never be tolerated. To my parents their son and Dalton Moore were on different paths and their friendship would end as soon as college began but it was my brother who had a craving for trouble. He was always looking for danger, committing petty crimes and getting away with it because Dalton would take the fall, blackening his already stained name. When Jonah found out we broke the rules by loving each other, his consequences impacted us all with immeasurable suffering. Betrayal comes with a debt and it would be paid by all of us. One with their heart, one with their mind and one would pay in blood.

Keeping What’s His: Tate


Jamie Begley - 2015
    Tate Porter had found that out when he was eighteen, and he had no intention of letting her make a fool out of him again. He didn’t care how much pain he saw in her eyes or how old memories tugged at his unforgiving heart until, the night a hidden secret is revealed and everything Tate had believed about their past is shattered, proving he had let the woman he loved get away.Between trying to protect his family and running their pot growing business, Tate doesn't have time to play the "Nice Guy". He'd just have to remember the most important rule his father had given them: A Porter always keeps what's his.

Heat Wave


Karina Halle - 2016
    ~~~ Still grieving the loss of her sister who died two years ago, the last thing Veronica "Ronnie" Locke needed was to lose her job at one of Chicago’s finest restaurants and have to move back in with her parents. So when a window of opportunity opens for her – running a kitchen at a small Hawaiian hotel – she’d be crazy not to take it. The only problem is, the man running the hotel drives her crazy:Logan Shephard.It doesn’t matter that he’s got dark brown eyes, a tall, muscular build that’s sculpted from daily surfing sessions, and a deep Australian accent that makes your toes curl.What does matter is that he’s a grump.Kind of an asshole, too.And gets under Ronnie’s skin like no one else. But the more time Ronnie spends on the island of Kauai, falling in love with the lush land and its carefree lifestyle, the closer she gets to Logan. And the closer she gets to Logan, the more she realizes she may have pegged him all wrong. Maybe it’s the hot, steamy jungles or the invigorating ocean air, but soon their relationship becomes utterly intoxicating. There’s just one major catch. The two of them together would incite a scandal neither Ronnie, nor her family, would ever recover from. Forbidden, Illicit, off-limits – sometimes the heat is worth surrendering to, even if you get burned.Note: this is a standalone novel, unrelated to any previous books. It does NOT contain cheating of any kind.

Ache


S.M. Soto - 2019
     What happens when you fall for the boy next door? Bea Norwood had the market on normal. Drama free life? Check. A single-mother who doubled as her confidant and partner in crime? Check. A neighbor and best friend she trusted more than anyone? Check. But that was until the day her mother remarried. The day that changed everything.When her best friend's cousin, Liam Falcon, is sent to live with his aunt and uncle to clean up his act, Bea finds herself falling for the boy next door. With their hearts so infinitely entwined, Bea turns to Liam as her only escape from her new step-brother's daily torment at home. Bea thought their love could conquer anything. But she was wrong. Love was for fools, and she was the biggest fool of them all. When Liam left Lakeport, he took her heart with him, shattering the organ to pieces. Six years later, Liam takes a trip back to Lakeport to visit his family, and to see HER. His first love.The girl who holds his heart.The same girl who shattered it six years ago without looking back. Liam is hell-bent on seeing Bea again after six years, but what he finds tears his heart in half. Bea Norwood is a shell of the girl he fell in love with. Underneath the baggy clothes, and pale skin, he knows she's still in there somewhere, he just needs to find her. Liam will stop at nothing to win his girl back, but sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and Liam isn't prepared for Bea's truth. *Some aspects of this story may be sensitive for readers.*

Flawed Heart


Bella Jewel - 2015
    The man I married was strong, beautiful and pure. The man I married cherished our lives together. The man I married loved me.This...This isn't that man.One night. One accident. It changes everything.I wish I could tell you the exact moment he fell out of love with me. I wish I could tell you there was hope. That I hung on. That I fought. I wish I could tell you that we fixed it. That happily every after was just out of our grips.It wasn't. I ran, in the dead of the night, I packed my things and I left him.Now I'm back. He's still the same man. A deadly underground fighter for the House of Obsidian. He's still dangerous. He's still broken. I still love him.This is the part where I'm supposed to turn around and run... But I don't.

Deal Breakers


Laura Lee - 2015
    But she was also the hottest chick I had ever known. I thought it would be simple. I thought we'd have a good time, then pretend like it never happened. It turns out, I was an idiot. Now, she wants nothing to do with me, but I'm determined. I've spent the last five years without her and I refuse to waste another day. I have a solid plan. All of my figurative ducks are in a row. I'm going balls to the wall, and I'm not stopping until I win back the only girl I've ever loved. Too bad for me, Devyn Summers has been sitting on a secret that nothing could've prepared me for. *Deal Breakers is filled with lots of laughs, a sexy romance, and an overflowing swear jar. It's the first installment in the Dealing With Love series, but each one can be read as a standalone.

Tattered


Devney Perry - 2018
    It’s somewhere just above the trash can her mother dumped her in as a newborn but below the class where much comes easy. With her tattered shoes and bargain-bin clothes, her life has never been full of glamour. So when a rich and charismatic man takes interest, she doesn’t fool herself into thinking their encounter is anything more than a one-night stand. Months later, she’s kicking herself for not getting his phone number. Or his last name. She’s given up hope of seeing him ever again.Until one day, years later, Logan Kendrick waltzes into her life once more and turns everything she’s built upside down. This time around, she won’t make the same mistake. She’s going to fight to keep him in her life—not for herself.But for their daughter.