Book picks similar to
Shades of Summer by Joy Elbel


young-adult
romance
paranormal-romance
first-reads

The Change


Teyla Branton - 2013
    By fluke of a recessive gene, she has become Unbounded, a nearly immortal being with paranormal abilities. Erin’s Change separates her from her loved ones and alters everything she believes to be true. A week earlier she was considering a marriage proposal; now she contemplates the best way to stay alive. Caught in a battle between two Unbounded groups, she is also hunted by a secret mortal society sworn to eradicate the Unbounded gene. Worse, a new identification software could mean death for all Unbounded—or enslavement for the entire mortal world. As Erin plunges into this dangerous new life, she must carve out her own place in the madness, protect her mortal family, and decide which group she should join. Her powerful attraction to Ritter Langton, whose family was massacred by opposing Unbounded two hundred and forty years ago, complicates her choices. There are no second chances. Death, life, or love—Unbounded always play for keeps. Non-stop action, terrifying consequences, and powerful romance make this an exciting addition to the world of urban fantasy.

Elfin


Quinn Loftis - 2012
    Her feet were firmly planted in suburban reality and she had no reason to believe her life would be anything but that of a typical teenager. That is until tonight, when Cassie saw something that no human was ever supposed to see; in the blink of an eye she was thrown into the world of the Light and Dark Elves.He comes from a realm where light and dark have fought for millennia. He is of a race known to humans only in myths and legends. The darkness that lives inside him is a part of both who and what he is and it makes him the most gifted spy and assassin in the history of his time. His life is not his own; he lives in the service of the Dark Elf King. He slays who he must, has mercy on no one, is relentless in his hunt, and never tires of seeing his prey fall. He is Triktapic, assassin, spy, most feared of the Dark Elves.Now, in the midst of his King’s complicated plans to expand the Dark Elves’ holdings into the mortal realm, for the first time, Trik finds his loyalties divided. For no Elf, Dark or Light, can turn away from their Chosen.Unbeknownst to the mortal realm, the battle between Light and Dark is being brought to their doorstep. The only one who can keep it at bay holds darkness in his heart like a lover, and the one who can sway that heart must decide if she can look beyond his black past, beyond his evil nature and see the man he is destined to be.The question must be asked, does love really cover a multitude of sins? Can true love actually conquer all or will his darkness consume those around him until all that stands is an assassin with the blood of the mortal realm on his hands?

Stained


Ella James - 2011
    With Julia is enigmatic hottie - Cayne, who has his own score to settle with the half-demon, and who might be just as dangerous as the creature he and Julia hunt.

Shaken


Susan Hatler - 2012
    When she touches people’s hands, she’s able to see their deepest thoughts. As if that’s not freaky enough, her dad sends her to help hottie detective, Sam Williams, track down a missing girl. Way too much pressure, especially for a girl who can’t watch Scream without getting nightmares. Then, finding the missing girl leads to much more than Kylie’s prepared for. Like discovering that her dad has been lying to her. That she has a family she never knew about. That the girls have powers similar to hers. Oh yeah, and that someone is out to get her. When the detective’s teenage wanna-be-cop cousin, Trip Williams, approaches Kylie at school insisting she help him solve the case, she discovers Trip might be the only one she can trust, and the only one to help her unravel the secrets behind her mysterious gift.

Wilde's Fire


Krystal Wade - 2012
    When she inadvertently leads her sister and best friend through a portal into a world she's dreamed of for six years, she finds herself faced with more than just the frightening creatures in front of her. Kate's forced to accept a new truth: her entire life has been a lie, and those closest to her have betrayed her. What's worse, she has no control over her new future, and it's full of magic and horrors from which nightmares are made. Will Kate discover and learn to control who she really is in time to save the ones she loves, or will all be lost?

The Soul's Mark: FOUND


Ashley Stoyanoff - 2012
    Once there, she discovers that her birthmark is more than it seems. She has been marked by a vampire’s soul. Not only does she hold his soul, but Amelia is also his soulmate.After almost a century of searching for his soulmate, Mitchell Lang fears the worst—he is going to lose Amelia to another man. His heart takes over, and his impulsive decision to take away her free will and to intensify their bond quickly turns her growing love into hate.When they become trapped in the emotional rollercoaster of their souls' bond, open conflict erupts. Amelia has no intentions of belonging to anyone, not even her soulmate, and Mitchell refuses to let her go.While she frantically searches for a way to escape his grasp, Amelia unlocks the painful memories of her past and uncovers a powerful secret. But before she has a chance to explore her newfound edge, she finds herself caught in the middle of a deadly game of revenge and is forced to realize that YOU CANNOT RUN FROM DESTINY.

Wicked Sense


Fabio Bueno - 2012
    Things get complicated when Skye meets a charming new classmate, Drake. Skye’s job becomes even trickier when she clashes with Jane, an intimidating rival witch.Drake falls for the mysterious Skye, but odd accidents, potion mix-ups, and the occasional brush with death kind of get in the way of romance. Once he discovers Skye is a witch, he goes to war for her, even though his only weapons are a nice set of abs and a sharp sense of humor.Fighting off wicked Jane and the other dark forces hell-bent on seizing the Singularity's immense power, Skye and Drake will risk everything to save the covens.Going on a date has never been harder.

Born


Tara Brown - 2012
    There are no regular people anymore."Ten years ago when the world ended she ran for her life.Five weeks ago the world she'd hidden from came knocking on the door of her secluded cabin.Ten days ago she found salvation hiding amongst the dead.Yesterday she went back for the living.Today she wonders if she will live to see tomorrow.What do you do when the world you were born to is gone?Where do you hide when even your own body isn't safe?Emma ran when her daddy told her to. She hid like he said she should. He was the first person she turned her back on. The first one she let die.Ten years has gone by and she still lives by the simple rules he taught her when she was nine years old."Don't help anyone. Don't go where other people are unless you have to. Trust no one. Always pull the trigger."Until one night she hears the worst sound in the world, a knock. A simple, timid knock, on the door to her cabin.Only the voice of the brave little girl, ready to die for her brother, persuades Emma to open the door.As her fingers turn the lock, she has a terrible feeling she will regret her decision.But even as regret fills her world, so do love and companionship. Things she never imagined she would ever have again.Everything comes at a cost; you decide what you'll pay.

The Sorcery Code


Dima Zales - 2013
    . . Once a respected member of the Sorcerer Council and now an outcast, Blaise has spent the last year of his life working on a special magical object. The goal is to allow anyone to do magic, not just the sorcerer elite. The outcome of his quest is unlike anything he could’ve ever imagined – because, instead of an object, he creates Her.She is Gala, and she is anything but inanimate. Born in the Spell Realm, she is beautiful and highly intelligent – and nobody knows what she’s capable of. She will do anything to experience the world . . . even leave the man she is beginning to fall for.Augusta, a powerful sorceress and Blaise’s former fiancée, sees Blaise’s deed as the ultimate hubris and Gala as an abomination that must be destroyed. In her quest to save the human race, Augusta will forge new alliances, becoming tangled in a web of intrigue that stretches further than any of them suspect. She may even have to turn to her new lover Barson, a ruthless warrior who might have an agenda of his own . . .

Becoming Red


Jess Raven - 2012
    You always said you would.’Ash DeMorgan, graduate, orphan, ice maiden, has long since consigned the fairytale nightmares of a troubled childhood to the realm of fantastical childish imagination.Now, lured back to Dublin, the scene of her tragic past, Ash encounters a city pulsing under the dangerous sexual influence of a new street drug the locals call Rave. Nothing is as it seems. Ash is about to discover that her nightmares are real, ancient Irish myths are larger than life and roaming the streets of the medieval city, and she has become the prey in their erotic hunt. A step back into her past is about to become a high adrenaline race for survival.Connal Savage, outcast, assassin, and living, breathing hunk of ancient mythology, has lived a thousand years servicing a debt of revenge. Dead inside. Until he encounters his boss’s granddaughter, an infuriating woman who threatens to lead him to hell with all his good intentions, who manages to chip away at the hard encrusted defences of a lifetime spent at war and burrow herself deep into a part of him that hasn’t breathed for centuries. He is about to discover that when it comes down to the wire, when you’re bargaining with the Grim Reaper for the life of the one you love, you will do anything... Book one of The Becoming series. A new voice in paranormal fantasy and romance.

Anathema


Megg Jensen - 2011
    Make your own destiny. Reychel is a slave girl surrounded by magic, lies, and manipulation. Her best friend disappears in the middle of the night leaving Reychel to face her fifteenth birthday, the day her master burns his brand into the back of her bald head, alone. Sheltered from the outside world and without any hope for escape, can Reychel learn to believe in herself?

Crossroads


J.J. Bonds - 2011
    The sole heir to the worlds’ most powerful vampire, her presence was bound to cause a stir. But nothing could have prepared her for this. Whispers follow everywhere she goes. So does trouble.Bodies start turning up in nearby Rutland and Katia is sucked into a twisted web of danger and deceit. Haunted by nightmares she can’t explain and a thirst for blood that is never sated, Katia will do whatever it takes to keep her past buried.Nothing at Crossroads is what it seems and Katia’s secrets may be the darkest of them all.

The Initiation


L.J. Smith - 1992
    Cassie is initiated into her hometown's coven of witches but her love for the coven leader's boyfriend could prove deadly.

A Death Displaced


Andrew Butcher - 2012
    A vision that could save her ...Nicolas Crystan, struggling to cope with his traumatic past, shuffles through life keeping mostly to himself ... until he has a disturbing daydream of a woman's death. At first he tries to forget it, but when real life mimics the daydream, he realises it was no ordinary fantasy—it was a vision of the future. To save a life, he must act fast.When Juliet Maystone escapes death, defying fate, she becomes 'displaced' in this world. All she wants is to return to her bustling day-to-day routine, successfully running her own business, but as hard as she tries, she can't ignore that things have changed for her. She has to face up to the fact that being 'displaced' comes with an unexpected ability.On Lansin Island, a quaint place with a dark history of its own, Nicolas and Juliet must learn to use their newfound abilities and work together to unravel a mystery more connected to Nicolas than he could ever have imagined ...A Death Displaced is the first book in a paranormal suspense/contemporary fantasy series with light romance.

The Legend of the Blue Eyes


B. Kristin McMichael - 2013
    Why were her parents dead? Why did she not have family? Where was she raised until she was five? When someone offers to explain it all, Arianna thinks she’s just getting answers. Instead, she is thrown into a world of night humans who drink blood.On Arianna's sixteenth birthday, her world is thrown upside down when she changes into a vampire. Night humans, or demons, as some call them, live in normal society. Learning all of the new rules of a world she didn’t know existed might be hard enough, but it's further complicated by two former-friends that now want to help her take her role as the successor to her grandfather. There is a war going on between the night humans. Sides have been taken and lines are not crossed. Four main clans of night humans are struggling for control of the night. Divided into two sides, clans Baku and Tengu have been at war for centuries with the clans Dearg-dul and Lycan. That is, until Arianna Grace finds out the truth; she’s the bridge of peace between the two sides. But not everyone wants peace. With the night humans divided, Arianna is now a pawn in the war between them. She must choose a side—her mother’s family or her father’s—and for once in her life, decide her own fate.