Book picks similar to
A Little Broken by Juli Valenti
contemporary-romance
emotional
contemporary
stand-alone
Fighting Fate
Linda Kage - 2013
But Logan Xander isn't quite the murderer she's always believed him to be. A day hasn't passed since the tragedy that Logan doesn't wish he could go back and undo everything. It doesn't take Paige long to realize he's suffered as much as she has. Forgiving him for ruining her life might not be so impossible after all. But when she actually starts to like him and realizes he likes her in return, their true anguish begins.
Cruel and Beautiful
A.M. Hargrove - 2015
(Rated R)
Cate Forbes
, a dedicated college student with a carefully plotted future, doesn’t know the first thing about love. When she accepts a blind date with a rumored tasty piece of eye candy, she thinks she can get by with a night of fun. Cate’s plans quickly unravel when she gets one look at the sexy…
Drew McKnight.
The relentless hockey-playing medical resident knows what he wants— a career in Oncology and Cate. Although he’s heard the gorgeous brunette is a little relationship skittish, a single night out isn’t what he has in mind. Determined to have her — in every way possible— he shows her just what a future with him would hold. Only life has other plans. The unthinkable happens and everything begins to shatter. Both in too deep, they will have to fight the cruel and hang onto the beautiful.
Maybe Maby
Willow Aster - 2014
Not the put-her-in-the-loony-bin kind, but the rock-in-the-corner-so-I-can-breathe kind. Maybe they’re one and the same and I really do need to be put away, but I think I just need a little air. I’m bone tired. My eyes look like I haven’t slept in weeks. I’m eating my feelings and developing a pudge that isn’t gonna go anywhere if I keep binging on chocolate, nachos and wine. I’m 28 and everyone has left me. I have no friends. My boyfriend left. My mom died, so technically she left me too. I hate my job. I get this overwhelming 'oh my God, is this what my life is gonna be?' feeling and I want to die. Curl up and die. And since I don’t feel my heartbeat fading or my breathing getting even slightly faint, I panic that I’m gonna have to live. Maybe Maby is a heartbreaking, and at times, hilarious story about coping with loss, finding love in New York, and learning to recognize hope in the middle of it all.
Changing Course
Aly Martinez - 2014
I was lucky enough to keep her for seven years before a tragic accident stole her from me. She didn’t die, but sometimes I think it would have been easier if she had.I lived in a haze for those four years after the accident. Catering to her every need, even though she hated the very sight of my face. I tried to hold on to her and the future that we were supposed to build together. But you can’t hold on to someone who doesn’t exist anymore.It wasn’t until I met Jesse Addison, a barista at the local coffee shop, that I realized I didn’t just lose Sarah that tragic night, I lost myself as well. Jesse taught me how to let go of the past and learn to love again. But what happens when your past haunts your present, and the woman you used to love refuses to accept the woman you can’t live without?*Intended for readers 18+. Each book in this series can be read as a standalone.*
On the Way to You
Kandi Steiner - 2017
I could have said my dog, or my books, or yoga — but I just stared. And then, I got in his car. It was crazy to take a road trip with a stranger, but after years of standing still, he was my one-way ticket to a new life, and I wasn’t going to miss it. We shared the same space, the same car, the same hotel room — and still, we were strangers. One day we’d be laughing, the next, we wouldn’t speak. Emery was surrounded by impenetrable walls, but I wanted in. Discovering his journal changed everything. I read his thoughts, words not meant for anyone’s eyes, and the more I learned about him, the harder I fell. It turned out nothing made Emery Reed happy, and I wanted to change that. I earned his trust by violating his privacy, and as wrong as it was, it worked — until one entry revealed a darkness I never knew existed, a timer I never knew was ticking. Suddenly, what made me happy was saving Emery from himself. I just didn’t know if I could.
Where We Belong
K.L. Grayson - 2014
. . she's a snarky little bitch.I’ve tried several times to regret the events that took place on June 5, 2008, but for the life of me, I can’t. I'd never regret the pain, the suffering, or the heartache because it ultimately led me to the place I am now. And I can’t regret the place I am now. What I still can't figure out is this: how is it possible that the single worst day of my life inadvertently became the very best day?Five years ago my life was irrevocably changed.Seventeen minutes was all it took—to lose my best friend…to lose the love of my life…Seventeen minutes was all it took for the seeds of hope—the seeds of my future—to be planted in the worst possible way.My name is Harley Thompson, and this is my story.
47 Things
Lilliana Anderson - 2015
I wasn't his sweetheart, and he should have already known my name. But, that was the moment I became caught in Tyler Lohan's sight. He was wonderful and complicated, and I'd spent my life trying to hate him for being the golden boy who had everything so easy. However, as with all things, Tyler wasn’t the person he appeared to be from the outside, and once I saw him – the real him – I fell, and I don’t think I ever got back up.There would be a total of forty-seven things that sucked me into Tyler's life then forced me away. Forty-seven things that ruined me forever.Forty-seven was never going to be enough.There was no number great enough...47 Things. A standalone new adult romance that follows a couple as they come to terms with falling love in a world they can't control, and the certainty of the inevitable.
Forbidden
Tabitha Suzuma - 2010
He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.
Where I End and You Begin
Andra Brynn - 2013
It may tangle, it may knot, it may stretch or fray, but it will never break. It is a future as indelible as the past.I hope that isn't true. I pity anyone destined to meet me.----For Bianca Ray, the past is always catching up, one way or another. Now in her third semester at college, it's doing it again. Too much drinking has led to plummeting grades and rising absences, putting her scholarships in peril. When she makes it clear that she needs help—all over the floor of her history class—she’s given one last chance to shape up: seek therapy and bring her grades up by the end of the semester, or she’s out.Enter Catholic seminarian Daniel McGuire. The last thing Bianca wants is an aspiring priest to counsel her on how to live her life, but the handsome graduate student is different from the holy rollers she fled from at home. Gentle and unobtrusive, he helps her pick up the pieces and find a new way to live: not running from the past, but facing it head on. But opening up her heart to release the pain means that something else can come in. As Bianca and Daniel grow closer, their relationship moves onto dangerous ground and the fragile courage Bianca has built up threatens to fail her. Can she exorcise the ghosts of her past, or will they catch hold and drag her down where not even Daniel can reach her?
The Wright Brother
Marie Hall - 2014
There was no noise, no sound, nothing. Deaf and colorblind, I was a loner. My world was bleak, silent and empty, until her. Until I met my neighbor, Elisa Jane Adrian. I want her. I need her. The fractured part of me feels whole when she's around. Like the world isn't so dark, isn't so bleak, and so still. I know it's impossible, but when I look at Elisa I swear I can see color, can hear the gentle inhalations of her breath. I know she feels it too, this magic, this desperate desire... I first saw him when I was three. Julian Wright was different than any other guy I'd ever known. He sees the world in a way I know I never will. But he intrigues me. The way he looks at me with his sea green eyes, how he hypnotizes me with his smile. It's dangerous these feelings I have for him. Reckless and stupid. I'm so much older than him, I know better. And I'll fight these desires, no one will ever know how I feel. I'll even pretend to myself that I'm not as hooked on him as he is on me. I'll move away to Ireland, I'll forget him, but that's the thing about the Wrights, they have a way of getting under your skin, into your soul, and no matter the time or distance, once a Wright sets their eyes on you, there's no going back...ever.
Recovered
Jay Crownover - 2018
However, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to save him from himself when no one else would. In the sweltering heat of the summer, Cable taught me that having it all means nothing if you can’t have the one thing you want more than anything else.CableI was obsessed with Affton Reed.She was rigid, uptight, and no fun. There was something about her innate goodness that called to me.She acted like she was above all the normal faults and failures that clung to the rest of us like the scent of smoke after a fire.I was infatuated with her, but that didn’t stop me from acting like she didn’t exist.In the scorching heat of summer, Affton taught me that there is always a way back from the brink of despair. She showed me that the trick to having it all was realizing that it was already there, in my hands. All I had to do was hold onto it.The road to recovery is full of twists and turns no matter who is in the driver’s seat.
The Ending I Want
Samantha Towle - 2016
Taylor Shaw had the perfect life—until she was sixteen. That was when everything changed. From that moment on, life went from bad to worse…to the worst. After recovering from a brain tumor, months later, she suffers the tragic loss of her whole family. Since that fateful day, she’s been coasting through life. Now, the brain tumor has returned, and Taylor decides she’s had enough. She’s going to take her fate into her own hands. No more hospitals. No more surgeries. No more anything. She’s going to join her family. It’s her decision. What she longs for. The ending she wants. She just has a list of things to do before she goes. First, go to England. Second, kiss a stranger… Only, Taylor didn’t expect Liam Hunter, the stranger—with his handsome face, his six-foot-three of gorgeousness, and his oh-so-hot English accent—to change things. To change her. To change the ending she wanted. What is a girl, who is standing on the edge of nothing, to do when offered the chance of everything?
Promise Me Always
Kari March - 2014
After being left with a broken heart by his only girlfriend, Blake swore off relationships for good and turned to the only two things that made him feel sufficient - sex and firefighting. Tessa Collins was brought up in the traditional 'perfect' family - loving parents, great sister, and amazing friends. After falling in love with Jared, her life was perfect - until he betrayed her. She has no idea that his betrayal could end up costing her more than just a shattered heart.Blake and Tessa have been friends since high school. Never wanting to admit their attraction for each other, the two always remained close friends. Now, three years later, Blake and Tessa find themselves being pulled together by a force much greater than friendship. Blake and Tessa have promised to be friends forever, but as fate pulls them together, they embark on a roller coaster ride of a lifetime. Will his self doubt and her insecurities keep them apart? Or will they be able to promise each other always? **content is for +18yrs.**
The Light in the Wound
Christine Brae - 2013
When Jesse Cain enters her life, she falls hopelessly in love with him, and every sadness she’s ever felt is washed away by his intensity and passion. But people change as they grow up. Things can never stay the same forever.Jesse and Isabel fight to stay together, determined to hold on to what they once had. Isabel wonders if a second love can ever be enough to make her forget her first.*Kindle version also available