Book picks similar to
Personal Experiences by Tracy Lee


dark
abuse
new-adult
contemporary-romance

Long Shot


Kennedy Ryan - 2018
    One of the NBA's brightest stars.Fine. Forbidden. He wants me. I want him.But my past, my fraudulent prince, just won't let me go.*Some aspects of this story may be sensitive for some readers.

Poison


Jade West - 2020
    The monster who left me in pieces over a decade ago.I swore I'd never speak to him again, that I'd never set eyes on him again as long as I lived.But I was wrong.When life gets too much and you need to escape, the poison that might kill you becomes oh so tempting.I craved his perverted ways, his smirk, his laughter as he pushed my body way past its limits.I needed a release from the crazy. Just once.Just one night. That’s what I told myself.No strings, no illusions, no promises. Nothing but the lasting thrill of his flesh on mine.The lasting hit of his poisonous touch.But when poison runs through your veins, the way he runs through mine, it’s toxic and eats you alive.This much passion always comes at a price...**This is a typically edgy Jade West novel. Please proceed with caution.**

Breaking Him


R.K. Lilley - 2015
    I gave it everything. And so when it failed, I lost myself.It changed me. He changed me.I went down with the ship.My soul, burnt embers in the aftermath. The fire of him ravaged it all.He burned me. Broke me.—Scarlett had always dreamed big. She was headed straight for Hollywood. Destined for silver screen greatness.But in her wildest dreams she never imagined she’d be broke and single at twenty-eight, doling drinks at thirty-five thousand feet.She was a glorified waitress in the skies.It had been years since she’d seen him.But one day, there he sat, gazing intently at her, ready to set everything ablaze once more.Dante wanted her. Again.Sure, she’d play along…but this time, it was his turn.She was breaking him.After all, love is war.

Royal


Winter Renshaw - 2016
    He’s not even a prince - though you could say I loved him once upon a time.He was my older brother’s best friend.Growing up, he sat at our dinner table every Sunday, teased me mercilessly, and pretended I annoyed him.When I was old enough, he took me on my first date.Royal taught me how to drive. Escorted me to my junior prom. Gave me my first kiss…amongst other things. He was my first taste of toe-curling, all-consuming, can’t-sleep love.We had our whole lives ahead of us. There was never anyone else for me but him.And then he disappeared. No letter. No explanation. Not even a goodbye.My sisters and brother never forgave him, and my parents forbade me from speaking his name in our house ever again. For all intents and purposes, we were to pretend Royal Lockhart never existed.I’ve spent the last seven years trying in vain to forget my first love, but just when I think I’ve finally moved on, guess who’s back in town?

Blaire


Anita Gray - 2016
    Conditioned. Sold to the enemy.My name is Blaire. I'm head of security to a man who controls the Russian underworld in Europe. His name is Maksim and he's my master. He bought me ten years ago and conditioned me with brutality to worship and protect him. And I have protected him. I've slain everyone who has tried to do him harm. Everyone but a man he loans me to; a man who threatens to break me and everything I believe in. You're going to need a strong stomach and a strong heart to follow my story, because take my word for it, it's no fairy tale.

Don't Make Me Beautiful


Elle Casey - 2013
    If you liked the movie "Sleeping With the Enemy", then you might like this story too. No one knew a woman lived there or that she even existed. A monster, living in darkness...At twenty-two, Nicole doesn't even look human anymore. The beast made sure of that. So she hides. A monster, consigned to a life of fear and solitude. This is all she deserves, she is quite sure of that.  And then one day out of the blue, the autographed baseball caught by Brian Jensen at the latest Marlins game enters her prison and manages to turn her world completely upside down.Temptation comes in the form of pity at first, and then perhaps something more. Does she dare to believe the things she's told, that this is not the life she was meant to live? That being a monster is not her forever-fate? And will she be willing to risk everything, to reach out and accept the helping hands around her and share her deepest, darkest secrets? She knows only too well that hands can hurt. Finding out whether they can also heal is a risky proposition, especially when the beast is still out there. Looking for her.Content warning: Violence, foul language, and adult situations. Not meant for younger readers. A note from Elle about this book: A really long time ago, I read an article in a newspaper or a magazine (I haven’t been able to locate the original) about a woman who was so badly beaten over a long period of time, she couldn’t leave her house. I thought about that woman a lot over the years and about what her thoughts might have been, her fears, her reality … and this book was my attempt to both exorcise those thoughts from my brain and also shed some light on a subject —domestic violence— that I feel should never be left in darkness.

Shame


Fiona Cole - 2017
    Pretty. Sweet. Kind. Submissive. Until I met her, I was alone with the dark desires that I didn't understand, that I couldn't reconcile. She became my best friend, and then she became so much more.Desire. Disgust. Shame. Dominance. I wouldn’t have survived until college without her. When we were together, I was at peace for the first time in my life. But it was too good to last. Our appetite for pain and pleasure destroyed us. And all the drinks in the world weren’t enough to get used to missing her. On the verge of earning my degree, Ana walks back into my life, those gray-blue eyes still able to see right through me. It’s the chance I’ve been waiting for. One last chance to overcome my shame. If only it were that easy.

Obsession


Ivory Quinn - 2013
    Rock star, producer and public enemy number one, he sees his redemption in quiet, wholesome school teacher Noelle Winters. Crashing into her life like a wrecking ball, he smothers her innocence and leads her down the razor's edge between submissive and victim, opening her eyes to things she didn't even know could happen between a man and a woman. Overwhelmed by his generosity and charm, how far will she go to save his soul? And when is it too late to turn back?* With bondage and multiple scenes of a sexual nature, this descent into the darkest parts of the human psyche is not for the faint of heart, or the under 18s.

The Ground Rules


Roya Carmen - 2015
    Don’t sleep around.2. Don’t kiss and tell.3. Be nice.4. Don’t text or call.5. Don’t fall in love.The rules are simple...until they aren't.I have everything I ever thought I could want: a nice home, a job I love, two beautiful girls, and my husband, Gabe - my high school sweetheart who still rocks my world. If you ask anyone to describe me they would say, "Oh, Mirella? She's such a nice girl." And I was...until a mysterious, peculiar man and his beautiful wife enter our lives. Weston and Bridget Hanson are no ordinary couple—they’re stunning, enigmatic, and sexy as hell. During the course of one unexpected evening, my ordinary world is turned upside down. How could it not be when Weston and Bridget propose the unthinkable? And when the unthinkable is so very tempting, giving in becomes inevitable. It sounds so logical and simple. Just five rules and we can all have what we desire. But the heart doesn't follow rules, and now passion, jealousy, and confusion threaten to tear everything apart.Two beautiful couples. Five simple rules. One hot mess.

Fragile Bonds


Sloan Johnson - 2014
    When she walked out of the house Xavier Ross bought as their forever home, she thought she was closing that door permanently, but fate had other plans. Xavier Ross tried to keep everyone at a distance until Melanie came into his life. The more he tried to fight his feelings for her, the more he fell in love. One rash decision fractured the trust that was essential to their relationship. Six years later, she is the last person he expects to see walk through his front door. Will Xavier and Mel be able to learn to trust one another again so they can fulfill a dying woman’s wish?

Badger


C.M. McKenna - 2015
    McKenna’s compelling voice has earned a devoted audience and multiple awards for her erotic fiction (as Cara McKenna.) Her page-turning literary debut, Badger, disturbs and titillates with the story of a recovering pill addict whose compulsive fascination with a Boston antihero spirals out of control.Nearly twelve months sober, Adrian Birch feels like a nobody. But when her wrist is broken in a hit-and-run accident, she’s avenged by the Badger, a secretive street vigilante. Instantly obsessed, Adrian takes to staging suicide and constructing chance meetings to get his attention. Their resulting affair is harsh and needy, wrought with McKenna’s signature dark eroticism—until the connection gets out of hand and ignites the violent passions of the city.Hailed for her “evocative,” “intense,” “deftly drawn,” and “engrossing” stories by reviewers at Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and Jezebel, McKenna now establishes herself as a rising star in neo-noir. Badger challenges the reader to imagine how an impulsive young man is killed, offering only the perspective of the fascinating and unreliable Adrian Birch.

Break Even


Lisa De Jong - 2015
    Every day, River gives me ten reasons to stay away, and then eleven reasons why I can't. Our relationship was to remain strictly business, or at least I tried. Four years of marriage, and everything with Cole has changed. I never knew two people who lived together could be so distant. But I’m not ready to give up on him.One man wants to break me.The other is just trying to get even. Both are lying to me.

Wounded


Jasinda Wilder - 2012
    My family. My home. My innocence. In a country blasted by war and wracked by economic hardship, a young orphan girl like me has very few options when it comes to survival. Thus, I do what I must to live, to eat, and I try very hard to not consider the cost to my soul. My heart is empty, and my existence brutal. The one impossibility in my life is love.And then I meet HIM.War is hell. It takes a chunk out of a man's very soul to do the kinds of things war demands of you. You live with fear, you live with guilt, and you live with nightmares. If you haven't been through it, there's no understanding it. War leaves no room for love, no room for tenderness or softness. You gotta be hard, closed off, and ready to fight every moment of every day. Lose focus for a split second, and you're dead.Now the only thing that can save me is HER.

Taking Connor


B.N. Toler - 2015
     Connor Stevens fit that bill. His reputation preceded him. With a hard body and vivid tattoos dispersed across his flesh, he certainly drew the judgmental eyes of conservative tight-asses. Even I had those same thoughts…regardless of how highly Blake spoke of him. But those opinions were about to be challenged. I’d promised to pick Connor up from prison—where he’d served eight years for manslaughter. When Blake passed away, I had every intention of honoring our agreement. Taking Connor home would be my ultimate show of gratitude. Blake never disclosed why Connor killed a man, and I never had the guts to ask. Ever daunted, and against my better judgment, I soon grew to feel close to Connor, in spite of how perverse it was. Still, I vowed to brush off those feelings at all costs. At least I thought I would. Until all hell broke loose… Diving head-first, I relished in the time spent in Connor’s damnation. But when he was thrust into hell, it didn’t matter how wrong it was to love him. It was immaterial what he’d done…or why. I came out swinging and clawing, and submerged into the inferno with him, refusing to leave until we both walked out hand in hand. My instinct was to fight. Connor wouldn’t burn alone. I would save him. Or turn to ash right beside him.

Every Which Way


Calia Read - 2012
    We were going to enjoy ourselves and this new adventure. She didn’t keep her side of the pact, but I was determined to. Then I met Macsen Sloan. He was quiet and kept to himself. He was nothing like his cocky, basketball star brother, Thayer. MacsenSeverine Blake was like every beautiful girl — she crooked her finger, expecting every guy within a mile to come crawling. Not only that, but she was sarcastic, opinionated and sometimes a complete bitch. We were polar opposites. I knew that, she knew that. But what gave me a second glance at her was that my brother was watching from afar. He wanted this girl. Yet she wanted me first. Thayer I saw her first. She was at a party, dancing with some guy, completely oblivious that I was staring. I knew nothing about her, yet I wanted to because I could see that her snark was just a front. She was hiding her true self. I just never anticipated her falling for my brother.New Adult