Demanding Ransom


Megan Squires - 2013
    In nineteen-year-old Maggie Carson’s case, it’s taken more than its fair share.Determined to move forward, Maggie embarks on her first year of college, hoping to finally put her past behind her, exactly where it belongs.But that’s hard to do when the present is just as difficult. And even harder when someone like Ran, the gorgeous paramedic that keeps crossing Maggie’s path, challenges her to face things head on, rather than bury them like she always does.Ran hasn’t had a perfect life either. But there’s something different about him, and something different about the way he makes Maggie feel. Maybe meeting Ran is life’s little gift for Maggie—a sort of consolation prize for enduring everything she's had to go through.But things don’t come easy for Maggie. Why should love be the exception? And just when everything starts to settle, it’s all turned on its head once again.If there is one thing Ran has taught Maggie, it’s that you can’t sit on the sidelines of your own existence. When life takes something that’s yours, you have every right to demand it back.Only for Maggie, that is easier said than done.(Ransom's Note, the sequel to Demanding Ransom, will release early 2014)

Love and Truth


Kathryn Perez - 2013
    Her parents’ shocking divorce causes Nicole to believe that true love is impossible to find. After spending her life in a small Texas town, Nicole joins a foreign exchange student dance program in the country where she was born. After years dreaming about her birthplace, she boldly leaves her world behind and moves in with a host family on the island of Okinawa in Japan. She anxiously awaits a year of improving her dance technique while enjoying a world of new experiences Jonathan Hayes was born to a Japanese mother and American Marine father via a surrogate in the States. After his father’s tragic death in Iraq when Jonathan was only a baby, his mother moved them back to her home in Okinawa. As a child, Jonathan's mother immersed him in American culture to honor his father. His good looks and immense musical talent have left him with no shortage of female admirers. But after a bad break-up from his girlfriend of two years, Jonathan plunges into a playboy lifestyle that leads him along a destructive path. As his wounds begin to slowly heal, he tries regaining his self-respect by living on the straight and narrow. But his heart remains closed to the idea of love; that is, until the night he sees the beautiful and innocent Nicole Harrison, upon the balcony of his neighbor’s home. While Nicole tries to navigate an unfamiliar country, she also has to learn how to navigate the unfamiliar and unwanted feelings she's developing for Jonathan through some very heart-wrenching and trying times. Will her fears push him away, or will Jonathan show her the truth of loyal love…

After the Sky Fell Down


Megan Nugen Isbell - 2012
    But when tragedy strikes, she is left to pick up the pieces of her now shattered life. As she tries to make sense of her new reality, life takes another startling turn, leading her down a path she never imagined. Through it all she finds comfort in a surprising companion who becomes her best friend and rock as she tries to rebuild her life. But when she unexpectedly meets someone, whose kindness and understanding offers her a chance at a fresh start, she struggles to move forward, afraid to leave her past behind. Will she be able to move on and find peace with her past in order to discover her future or will she let her past condemn her to a life of loneliness, unable to let go of a life that can never be?

Stripped


Brooklyn Skye - 2013
    I look away, down the rutted parking lot.“Don’t... waste those words on me.”He touches my cheek. “You just need someone to show you.”“No.” I ease back again. “I don’t. So please, Torrin, stop trying to swoop in and save me. I don’t need saving.” College freshman, Quinn Montgomery, will do anything to avoid the mistake her sister made — killing herself over a boy. But when she is forced into nude modeling at a local college to support her family after a bankruptcy, she begins to crack, just enough to let Torrin, the university’s top varsity oarsman, see that the real Quinn is not as feisty and unapproachable as she wants everyone to think. But letting someone in comes at a steep cost and, it turns out, Torrin is connected to Quinn’s family in more ways than she could ever imagine.

Until It Hurts to Stop


Jennifer R. Hubbard - 2013
    Every day, the other girls tripped her, pinched her, trapped her in the bathroom, told her she would be better off dead. Four years have passed since then, and Maggie’s tormentors seem to have moved on. The ringleader of them all, Raleigh Barringer, even moved out of town. But Maggie has never stopped watching for attacks, and every laugh still sounds like it’s at her expense. The only time Maggie feels at peace is when she’s hiking up in the mountains with her best friend, Nick. Lately, though, there’s a new sort of tension between the two of them—a tension both dangerous and delicious. But how can Maggie expect anything more out of Nick when all she’s ever been told is that she’s ugly, she’s pathetic, she’s unworthy of love? And how can she ever feel safe, now that Raleigh Barringer is suddenly—terrifyingly—back in town?

Star-Crossed


Luna Lacour - 2014
    It is intended for mature readers.It started with a game - seduce the new teacher.Eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Laurent is living the American Dream. Born into a wealthy, socialite family with more opulent surroundings and material things than any girl could even fathom, Kaitlyn is the fresh, young face amidst a sea of morally-amiss Manhattan Debutantes. She is educated, poised, and on the outside - entirely virtuous. Her life, in short, is perfect.Or so it would seem. Inside the walls of her Upper East Side mansion, Kaitlyn is struggling. After her parents' divorce and her father's remarriage to a beautiful but otherwise utterly vapid woman, Kaitlyn quickly finds herself living in a realm of self-created fantasy, completely detached and entirely clashing with her new family – particularly, her classmate-turned-stepbrother, Marius. Arrogant and with a penchant for playing games, he is intrigued and infatuated by Kaitlyn's faux-chaste outer facade that she uses to cover an otherwise calloused heart.When the two of them enter into into their final semester at Trinity Prep, and the buzz around campus is that a gorgeous new teacher has set foot in the classroom, Marius makes Kaitlyn a bet: seduce the man who is now her Literature teacher.If she wins, she gets his trust fund. Money that she can use to finally escape a life that she has come to loathe.If Marius wins...he gets her virginity.When an initial spark turns into full-blown obsession, and her affections are inevitably returned – Kaitlyn learns that there are no actions without consequence, and some affairs are simply star-crossed.

The Boots My Mother Gave Me


Brooklyn James - 2010
    Made to feel a burden to her father simply by her gender, Harley is determined to prove her worth and independence, leaving the small town she grew up in and the one boy who gave her a soft place to fall, Jeremiah Johnson. Torn between saving herself and abandoning her mother and younger sister, Harley chooses her own life in hopes they will choose theirs, too.A mature, candid read for everyone. A must for women. The Boots My Mother Gave Me explores the dynamics of abuse and dysfunction, the courage to overcome, the strength in sisterhood, and the ongoing conflict and unconditional love between mothers and daughters.Climb into Charlene the Chevelle for a fast-paced story about a girl who is tough enough to survive and tender enough to learn to trust in love.Signed Paperback & Original Music Soundtrack to The Boots My Mother Gave Me can be found at www.brooklyn-james.com

Shh!


Stacey Nash - 2015
    She has it all, until Christian breaks up with her in public, calling her out as a self-gratifying sexoholic: the kind that plays solo. But Olivia doesn’t masturbate all night — the only thing she does is sleep … right?Now all the boys on campus seem to want her attention for the absolutely wrong reason — including resident hottie, Logan Hays. He's pulling out his best moves to gain her attention, so resisting his sexy charm is hard work. With rapidly slipping grades, a disturbingly lurid reputation and demanding parents, Olivia must discover the truth behind her rumoured sleeping problem. If she doesn't, the perfect life she's worked so hard for may slip away, including the one person who has Olivia breaking all her rules — Logan.What do you do when you’re asleep?***Shh! is a story about acceptance, learning to trust and in turn love while facing life's unexpected difficulties.NB: This book is of a mild heat level, and contains no sex scenes.

Return to Me


Justina Chen - 2013
    She's weeks away from starting college--at a school chosen specifically to put a few thousand miles of freedom between Reb and her parents. But her dad's last-minute job opportunity has her entire family moving all those miles with her! And then there's the matter of her unexpected, amazing boyfriend, Jackson, who is staying behind on the exact opposite coast.And if that isn't enough to deal with, mere days after moving cross-country, Reb's dad drops shocking, life-changing news. With her mother and brother overwhelmed and confused, Reb is left alone to pick up the pieces of her former life. But how can she do that when everything can change in an instant? How can she trust her "perfect" boyfriend when her own dad let her down? Reb started the year knowing exactly what her future would hold, but now that her world has turned upside down, will she discover what she really wants?Justina Chen, the acclaimed author of North of Beautiful, has created a moving and powerful novel about the struggles that arise from betrayal, the uncertainty of life after high school, and the joy that ultimately comes from discovering what's truly in your heart.

Stroke of Fear


Alla Kar - 2013
    A novel about letting go of your fears and letting yourself love again.Sometimes the things you love are the things you fear the most …Aubrey Depp has already faced death and escaped it once. Now it's back to get her. Once a swimming champion at her high school, Aubrey’s life was taken away when a former swimmer and boyfriend tosses her over a bridge, leaving her for dead.Now a senior in college, she takes a summer job as a camp counselor with her best friend Cassie and her it’s complicated boyfriend Jake. Then she meets southern heartthrob Tanner Young and her entire summer is flipped upside down. He’s damaged, has a sexy southern drawl and has his eyes set on Aubrey. She doesn’t mind.Tanner is damaged, broken and for the first time in a year, feels like he can love again. Aubrey Depp is the one he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets her.When Aubrey's past comes back to haunt her, Tanner vows to protect Aubrey. Showing her it’s okay to take that Stroke of Fear.Cover By: Lindee Robinson Photographyhttp://lindeerobinson.wix.com/photoil...https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lindee...

Volition


Lily Paradis - 2015
    Everything lines up so perfectly that you couldn’t have imagined it to work out better, but then you have to go and do everything humanly possible to ruin it because you can’t stand to have it go right? That’s what I did. I did it because there’s a darkness that surrounds me, and I think I want it there. My name is Tate McKenna, and my soul is blacker than my heart.

I See London


Chanel Cleeton - 2013
    But when she accepts a scholarship to the International School in London, a university attended by the privileged offspring of diplomats and world leaders, Maggie might get more than she bargained for. When Maggie meets Hugh, a twentysomething British guy, she finds herself living the life she always wanted. Suddenly she’s riding around the city in a Ferrari, wearing borrowed designer clothes and going to the hottest clubs. The only problem? Another guy, the one she can’t seem to keep her hands off of. Half French, half Lebanese, and ridiculously wealthy, Samir Khouri has made it clear he doesn’t do relationships. He’s the opposite of everything Maggie thought she wanted…and he’s everything she can’t resist. Torn between her dream guy and the boy haunting her dreams, Maggie has to fight for her own happy ending. In a city like London, you never know where you stand, and everything can change in the blink of an eye. This is a New Adult romance recommended for readers 17 and up.

The Summer I Learned to Dive


Shannon McCrimmon - 2012
    On the night of her high school graduation, things take a dramatic turn when she discovers that her mother has been keeping a secret from her—a secret that causes Finn to do something she had never done before—veer off her plan. In the middle of the night, Finn packs her bags and travels by bus to Graceville, SC seeking the truth. In Graceville, Finn has experiences that change her life forever; a summer of love, forgiveness and revelations. She learns to take chances, to take the plunge and to dive right in to what life has to offer.

Defect


Ryann Kerekes - 2013
    They can. After failing the mindscan procedure that predicts future crime, she’s deemed a Defect and subjected to endless psychological and physical testing as the government tries to determine what’s different about her. The one bright spot is military guard, Will. He’s gentle with her when no one’s watching and suppresses a smile whenever she defies their challenges. Will’s lessons begin to dance dangerously close to knowledge she shouldn’t possess, like what’s beyond the fenced compound. Though it’s forbidden and Will would be killed on the spot if they’re discovered, they steal away moments together. With her very life on the line, Eve has to decide if she can trust the guard she’s falling for.DEFECT, young adult romance takes place in the near-future. It is a survivalist love story.

Just Plain Weird


Tom Upton - 2008
    His greatest concern was making the high school football, until an odd girl moves in next store, a girl whose secrets threaten not only his existence but the existence of everyone on the planet.