Book picks similar to
Blue by H.J. Bellus


new-adult
college
romance
sports

Fake Fiancée


Ilsa Madden-Mills - 2017
    They say nothing compares to your first kiss,But our first kiss was orchestrated for an audience.Our second kiss . . . that one was REAL.He cradled my face like he was terrified he'd f*ck it up.He stared into my eyes until the air buzzed.Soft and slow, full of sighs and little laughs,He inhaled me like I was the finest Belgian chocolate,And he'd never get another piece.A nip of his teeth, his hand at my waist . . .And I was lost.I forgot he was paying me to be his fake fiancée.I forgot we weren't REAL.Our kiss was pure magic, and before you laugh and say those kinds of kisses don't exist,Then you've never touched lips with Max Kent, the hottest quarterback in college history.Three months. Two hearts. One fake engagement.

The End Game


Kate McCarthy - 2015
    They are heroes in the eyes of boys and girls and are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that positively represents their community.”The public loves a good scandal. Seeing someone fall from the pinnacle of success makes a great headline. No one knows that better than I do. What started out as a promising career in college football, spiraled into scandal and shame. But being a hero is easier said then done. Especially when there are those who expected to see the great Brody Madden fail. I craved nothing except being the best—willing to do anything to prove them wrong. But I went too far, and I tried too hard, and it broke me.“At the time of going to print, Jordan Elliott was unavailable for comment.” I met Brody Madden in my senior year of college. An Australian native on an international scholarship, I was the female soccer sensation with stars in her eyes and no room for a hotshot wide receiver with a chip on his shoulder.But a heart bursting with ambition and a driving fire to succeed isn’t made of stone. I became his strength, his obsession, and the greatest love of his life. Only I wasn’t there when he needed me most.This is a story about love and a game that takes everything. Where the path to glory is paved with sacrifice. Where pressure makes you, or breaks you, and triumph is born in the ashes of failure. Where two people’s end game will change everything.

Off Sides


Sawyer Bennett - 2013
    Maybe it was the impossible expectations I faced, maybe it was my own self-loathing. But I just knew I needed something different to happen. I needed someone... something... to derail me from my current path. Otherwise, I would become lost... a hollowed out shell of a man. So I did it. I approached her, then I pursued her, then I made her mine. And my life was saved...”Ryan Burnham is the privileged son of a U.S. Congressman and captain of his university’s hockey team. While he is on the verge of fulfilling his dreams to play in the NHL, his parents want him on a different course. One he is expected to accept for the sake of his family’s public image.Forced her to abandon her music career after the heart breaking death of her parents, Danny Cross exists on the opposite side of the tracks from Ryan. She is struggling to make her own way, working two jobs, attending college part time and volunteering in a homeless shelter. She is on a mission to build her own success.With a chance meeting, their vastly different worlds collide, causing each to evaluate whether they are truly on the correct path to self-fulfillment and happiness. Can their relationship survive? Particularly when others are against them every step of the way. A lot can happen in just ten short days...

Love and Skate


Lila Felix - 2012
    But Nellie’s been hurt, only once, but it was enough to make her look at life through different eyes and off the rink she’s a timid girl who loves with no pretenses. A long time ago Owen Black was betrayed by the girl he thought he loved and the guy he called his best friend. The anguish set off a domino effect of negativity in his life and he never has fully recovered. He meets Nellie Forrester and thinks he can let it go for her. But how can you love someone when the wounds from your past are still wide open?

Broken at Love


Lyla Payne - 2013
    A rich kid who’s not used to being disappointed by life, Quinn and his sociopathic half-brother Sebastian create a frat house game intended to treat girls how they see them—as simple game pieces to be manipulated for their pleasure.College sophomore Emilie Swanson knows Quinn’s reputation—after all, he did send one of her sorority sisters into therapy earlier in the semester—but the game and his charm bring them closer together and soon she starts to believe there’s more to Quinn than people think.But what if the more is something darker than a game of toying with emotions and breaking hearts?Quinn and Emilie might be falling for each other, but there are secrets he’s not ready to tell—and lifestyle changes he’s reluctant to make. She willingly stepped on the court, but if Emilie finds out she started out as nothing as a pawn in Quinn and Sebastian’s twisted game, she might never forgive him.To his surprise, Quinn finds that he might finally care about someone more than he cares about himself…even if that means letting Emilie walk away for good.

Love Surfaced


Michelle Lynn - 2015
    We stayed on our designated sides of the relationship circle. Ignoring swarming butterflies.Brushing off skipped heartbeats.Settling on lingering stares.Here’s the secret … a hand extended over that invisible line once, exponentially changing the equation. I was convinced we could make our relationship work until Tanner broke the trust he embedded in me from the age of seven. One deceit of mega proportions and the relationship we built for that short month vanished. I swore never to speak to him again and it’s worked. Until now—two years later, when my brother’s wedding places me face-to-face with the best man—Tanner McCain. Leaving one equation to be solved. Can love surface twice?

After Math


Denise Grover Swank - 2013
    A mathematics major, she goes to her classes, to her job in the tutoring lab, and then hides in the apartment she shares with her friend, Caroline.After junior Tucker Price, Southern University’s star soccer player enters the equation, her carefully plotted life is thrown off its axis. Tucker’s failing his required College Algebra class. With his eligibility is at risk, the university chancellor dangles an expensive piece of computer software for the math department if Scarlett agrees to privately tutor him.Tucker’s bad boy, womanizer reputation makes Scarlett wary of any contact, let alone spending several hours a week in close proximity.But from her first encounter, she realizes Tucker isn’t the person everyone else sees. He carries a mountain of secrets which she suspects hold the reason to his self-destructive behavior. But the deeper she delves into the cause of his pain, the deeper she gets sucked into his chaos. Will Scarlett find the happiness she’s looking for, or will she be caught in Tucker’s aftermath?

Heartless


Winter Renshaw - 2016
    It was raining sideways that morning, and my plan was to return it the next day; safe and dry. Only I kept it. I kept it, and I read it. A week later, overwhelmed with curiosity and feeling guilty for harboring secrets that didn’t belong to me, I tried to return it. Only I wasn’t expecting to meet him. Unapologetically heartless and enigmatically sexy, he claims he knows nothing about the journal I found outside his place, but the reticent glint in his blue-green gaze tells me otherwise. There’s something different about him; something damaged yet magical, and I’m drawn to him; pulled into his orbit. There’s just one problem. The more I get to know him, the more I’m positive the journal belonged to him... ...and the more I find myself hoping, selfishly, that I’m wrong.

Beneath Your Beautiful


Tamsyn Bester - 2013
    Her name exposes her to the demons of her past but remembering her reason for moving across the country to start over is what keeps her alive. For the first time since the brutal murder of her mother, Huntley allows herself to care about the people around her.Grayson Carter has everything a 21yr old College Senior could wish for – he’s the star of Whitley University’s football team, he has a different girl willing to be in his bed every night and a supportive family. For years he has managed keep his family together and hide their dark secrets from the small town of Breckinridge, Alabama. When Huntley and Grayson meet, a force so strong pulls them together in a hurricane of feelings neither of them could have ever anticipated. Huntley and Grayson try to stay away from each other, but when Huntley’s demons seek her out, their pasts become the biggest storm of all. Will they learn to trust each other and build a new future together or will they simply do nothing to prevent history from repeating itself?“You don’t want to see beneath the surface Gray, there is a reason I only show people what they want to see.” – Huntley“You are so determined to hide your broken soul that you don’t see how beautiful those pieces make you. You have completely disarmed me Huntley, you have left my heart and soul naked and all I want is for you to see that I am in love with every goddamn broken piece of you. I don’t want anyone else.” - Grayson

This Sky


Autumn Doughton - 2014
    She’s no stranger to disappointment but nothing could have prepared her for the chaos that unfolded when her celebrity boyfriend publicly humiliated her. Now the fairytale is officially over and Gemma is determined to put the past behind her and strike out to find a new dream. Just a few teeny-tiny details to work out: she’s currently broke, homeless and unemployed. Landon Young has his own worries. Surfer by day and bartender by night, he doesn’t have the interest or the time to be anyone’s happily-ever-after. Weighed down by the memory of what happened two years ago, Landon can barely keep his head above water. This Sky is the thoughtful and often funny story about broken trust, an unexpected love and the hopes we keep sewn in the linings of our pockets.

Trouble


Samantha Towle - 2013
    Running from a person she doesn’t ever want to find her. Running from a past she doesn’t ever want anyone to know. Desperate to find a future, that yesterday, she could only dream of having. Jordan Matthews likes easy. Easy women. Easy life. Then he meets Mia. She’s damaged, troubled and has more baggage than any person can carry. But the more Jordan gets to know Mia-for the first time in his life-he finds himself wanting to try hard for something … for someone … for her.And then life isn’t so easy anymore. Jordan is everything Mia shouldn’t want. A whole bunch of dirty hotness, tattooed, cocky bad boy, who made his money at poker tables and picked his women up in bars. Yet, Mia finds herself falling for him. Then the past Mia was running from, quickly starts to catch up with her. Because that’s the problem with running … you have to stop sometime. And when you stop, you get caught.Full length New Adult Contemporary Romance.Recommended Reading Age 18+

Long


B.B. Hamel - 2016
     Gibson Evans is the best college football quarterback in the country. He’s tall, broad, tattooed, and so incredibly handsome. And he got me pregnant. It was supposed to be just one night, but a broken condom changed all of our plans forever. People treat him like a hero, but I think he’s a total prick. Gibson gets whatever he wants, and now suddenly he wants me. But I have enough to deal with. I have to stop daydreaming about his hands between my thighs and concentrate on having this baby while still managing to graduate on time. He wants to make a deal. If I promise to spend time with him, he’ll help me with my final biology research. That means an entire semester of studying Gibson’s body. I’m not sure I can do this. One second I can’t stand to be around him, and the next I’m touching his ripped muscles and trying to suppress my excitement. I’m terrified he’ll ruin everything if I let this become more than just work. Long is incredibly steamy and features some very dirty language. It’s only recommended for audiences 18+. Long is a standalone, full-length novel. No cliffhanger. Guaranteed HEA. **For a limited time, Long includes Smash: A Stepbrother MMA Romance**

The Studying Hours


Sara Ney - 2016
    ARROGANT. A**HOLE. No doubt about it, Sebastian ‘Oz’ Osborne is the university’s most celebrated student athlete—and possibly the biggest douchebag. A walking, talking cliché, he has a filthy mouth, a fantastic body, and doesn’t give a sh*t about what you or anyone else thinks. SMART. CLASSY. CONSERVATIVE. Make no mistake, Jameson Clarke may be the university’s most diligent student—but she is no prude. Spending most of her time in the hallowed halls of the library, James is wary of pervs, jocks, and douchebags—and Oz Osborne is all three. She’s smart, sarcastic—and not what he expected. …EVERY DOUCHBAG HAS HIS WEAKNESS. He wants to be friends. He wants to spend time with her. He wants to drive her crazy. He wants… Her.

Spinning Out


Lexi Ryan - 2016
    I had it all, and I threw it away with a semester of drugs, alcohol, and pissing off anyone who tried to stop me. Now I’m suspended from the team, on house arrest, and forced to spend a semester at home to get my shit together. The cherry on my fuckup sundae? Sleeping in the room next to mine is my best friend’s girl, Mia Mendez—the only woman I’ve ever loved and a reminder of everything I regret.I’m not sure if having Mia so close will be heaven or hell. She’s off-limits—and not just because she’s working for my dad. Her heart belongs to someone else. But since the accident that killed her brother and changed everything, she walks around like a zombie, shutting out her friends and ignoring her dreams. We’re both broken, numb, and stuck in limbo.Until I break my own rules and touch her. Until she saves me from my nightmares by climbing into my bed. Until the only thing I want more than having Mia for myself is to protect her from the truth. I can’t rewrite the past, but I refuse to leave her heart in the hands of fate. For this girl, I’d climb into the sky and rearrange the stars.SPINNING OUT is a sexy, emotional novel of 100,000 words. It is first in the Blackhawk Boys, a series of standalone novels.

Unbreakable


Rebecca Shea - 2013
    She’s a good daughter, makes excellent grades, and always strays on the safe side of life. The last thing she thought would ever happen was falling in love with her best friend’s brother. But sometimes fate just has a way of bringing two people together. Wide receiver for the University of Arizona, Gabe Garcia, seems to have it all. When his feelings for Jessica come to surface, Gabe will give up everything to be with her. But what happens when a tragedy abruptly changes the course of your life? For Jessica and Gabe, everything they thought they knew about each other will be questioned. Sometimes, there are scars in life that are cut too deep to completely heal. Will their love prove to be unbreakable, or will it shatter and prove fate is just another lie?*This book contains mature subject matter and is not intended for those under 17 years of age.*