Book picks similar to
Last Shadow by Pepper Winters


dark
new-adult
not-yet-released
waiting-for-release

Mr. X


Clarissa Wild - 2014
    X is ready for you, but are you ready for him?USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR Clarissa Wild brings you Mr. X, a dark Romance thriller, which is a stand alone without cliffhanger.*Author Note: This is not your average romance story. Some people will kill for love.*He’s come to kill me.I’m a user and abuser of my own body. In my darkest hour I sold my soul to the devil and now I must pay the price. With his gun to my head I have no choice but to listen and obey, but I refuse to go down easily. Nothing is stronger than the will to survive. My instincts kicked into full gear the second he stepped into my motel room.Except when I look at him I see my own heart staring back at me. A history tainted by blood.I don’t know his name, but I know he wants me. To save myself I’ll sacrifice my sanity. My body. My soul. Something tells me the x-shaped scar that marks his eye is the only escape I have. He is Mr. X: the man who comes to claim my life. Can I save myself before he demands my heart?WARNING: This book contains very disturbing situations, strong language, drugs and alcohol, and graphic violence.No Cliffhanger. Complete at 90800 words. Stand Alone.

The Decimation of Mae


D.H. Sidebottom - 2014
    Not in the physical sense, you must understand, but very much literally. He was persistent, resolute and tenacious. His ruthless greed to annihilate me was utterly disturbing. I am sure if he had hierarchy, the man at the top would have dragged his arse into Hell’s prison for his unscrupulous methods. I was just fifteen when I first became aware of what he was capable of. This initial taste of him set the playing field for how my life was to be lived – for want of a better word. He mocked me, showed me mercilessly how he played the game and how he liked to cheat at said game. He ridiculed and taunted me until, six months later, he won and took something of so much importance from me that I would never be the same again. His second visit was, in my eyes, so much more cruel and heartless. I know we’re talking about the Devil here, and yes, you have a right to say he had no heart but even then, even when I was so utterly broken, I begged to differ and hoped – no, prayed – that somewhere deep in the caverns of his black, tortured soul there was something that beat and confused his emotions once in a while. The third visit was somewhat different than the other two. He tried, and at first succeeded to bring me to my knees once and for all, but then something happened. God finally intervened and altered Satan’s intention; he sent hope and morphed the Devil’s minion into an Angel, hoping to break and shatter the anguish and suffering. He gave the ability for me to feel pleasure in pain, order in the chaos and light in the darkness. But in giving me a reprieve, he also gave me something that would finally and ultimately obliterate me. He gave me the capability to love, therefore giving me the ability to be destroyed. And Satan made sure that I was destroyed. Cruelly, viciously and sadistically. I am Mae Swift, and this is the story of my decimation. ***WARNING*** This story doesn’t contain hearts and flowers, it doesn’t even contain the word ‘love’. It isn’t for the fainthearted, nor those who want romance and happy ever afters. It’s dark, in fact it goes beyond the dark realms of misery and despair. It contains disturbing scenes of sexual violence, cruelty and torture. It also includes self-harm, pain addiction and brutalisation. Please bear this in mind before purchasing this book. Thank you.

The Good Girl


Dawn Robertson - 2014
    Bartending from nine to two.Wake up and do it all over again.All while depending on no one but myself… because everyone in my life has repeatedly let me down.I cling to the one thing that will always remain a constant in my life: Art.Body art, photography, painting… you name it and my interest is piqued.Almost as strong as his interest in me.I wanted nothing to do with himBut he was the type who took what he wanted.His hate became his obsessionAnd his obsession became so much more.I am his good girlAnd I wonder if he'll ever let me go.***Content Disclaimer - This book contains descriptions of violence and is only intended for mature audiences 18 years of age and older***

The Sect


Courtney Lane - 2014
    This is not a love story.Keaton Mara ran away from a life that had become a nightmare to live on the streets. While the location she now calls home is a dangerous place, she is protected by an unlikely friendship. The streets provided her with the education she could’ve never earned from the prestigious university she attended. Regrettably, the term ‘educated fool’ becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Due to meeting a man with whom she shares a captivating chemistry with, her judgement is clouded, resulting in a fateful decision. The consequence of trusting the prepossessing stranger results in her being stolen away to a place unknown. Her deceptive new surroundings are just as beautiful as the people who reside there. She discovers that it’s a place where the culture of sex without limits or morals is their religion. Keaton quickly begins to realize that the beautiful scenery serves to hide a very dark truth. The seductive and enigmatic man—who lured her there—desires to save her soul. His intentions are sinister, because saving her soul is synonymous with breaking her. Because Keaton believes her soul was brutally stolen from her many years ago, she thinks he can’t save (or destroy) something she no longer has. She…was…wrong.

Apolonia


Jamie McGuire - 2014
    Z, the eccentric college professor who has taken her under his wing; not Benji, the endearing, attractive classmate who insists on following her around; and certainly not Cy, the beautifully dark and mysterious boy who sits in the first row in Dr. Z’s Astrobiology class and asks far too many questions. When Rory witnesses Cy being abducted by soldiers in the middle of the night, she finds herself immersed in a world that holds more secrets than she could imagine, even darker secrets than her own. From #1 New York Times Bestseller Jamie McGuire, experience the perfect combination of her bestselling books Providence and Beautiful Disaster. This New Adult Sci-Fi Romance is an action-packed, whiplash-inducing roller-coaster ride. Page after page, this unpredictable, dark, and sexy nail-biter will keep readers guessing until the very end!

Kick


Carmen Jenner - 2015
    A club whose ties ran thicker than blood, murkier than the dirt and grime that tainted my soul. Stronger than the bonds that connected me to my own family.A band of brothers, where loyalty was kept and paid in a currency of blood.When I was twenty-seven, I betrayed that brotherhood.I’ve spent every day since running, avoiding paying back that debt.My name is Daniel Johnson. I have betrayed everyone I ever loved. And I’ll betray her too.This is my story—if you’re screwed up enough to want to read it.Warning: Kick contains graphic violence, profanity, drug use, and explicit sexual situations of a taboo nature. Intended for an 18+ audience only. Not intended for pussies.

Until I Break


Michelle Leighton - 2013
    Tempted beyond what I’ve ever been before. To know her, to open her up. To break her."In love, sometimes what you fear most is exactly what you need.Laura Drake is an author. She writes bestselling paranormal romances that continue to top the charts. She is sharp. She is confident. She is in control. And she doesn’t exist.Samantha Jansen is the woman behind the wig, the woman most of the world doesn’t know exists. She is shy. She is insecure. She is nothing like her main character or her alter ego. She is scarred—deeply scarred—by a past she can’t let go of and a present she can’t make peace with.Samantha’s dreams are consumed by one man, the broken hero from her books. Mason Strait is both her wildest fantasy and her most terrifying nightmare. When Samantha meets Alec Brand, a corporate consultant, it is as though Mason has come to life. Alec is handsome to a fault, as elegant as he is arrogant, and more intense than any man has a right to be.Samantha is soon sucked into a world that mirrors the fiction she writes. Just like her main character, Daire Kirby, Samantha finds herself unable to resist the forbidden lure of Alec. And just like Daire, she also finds that she is faced with taking a chance on a man who could either set her free or destroy her.The scale tilts toward destruction when Samantha finds out that Alec is as much a work of fiction as Mason. And he has scars of his own, scars that could ruin them both.**This book may be read as a stand-alone, as the story of Alec and Samantha comes to a conclusion in this book**

Drop Dead Sexy


Katie Ashley - 2016
    Growing up as the daughter of a small town mortician, guys didn’t warm to the fact there were dead people in her house. At thirty, taking over the family business and becoming the town Coroner helped to cement her undateable status. Of course her past sex history didn’t help matters either.Attempt number one with her first love ended barely before it got started with a horrific latex allergy hospitalization. Attempt number two had him coming and then going with an undiagnosed heart condition. For the past three years, Olivia has closed up shop for fear of what might happen next in the bedroom.After being forced to go single to her mother’s lingerie shower, Olivia stumbles into an out of town bar with one intention: find an able bodied stud to go home with to end her losing sex streak. Enter Holden Caulfield Mains aka Catcher, who earned his nickname not just from the book he was named for, but for the fact he was sure to catch the attention any woman who came within a five mile radius. Waking up after a night of the most mind blowing sex she could have ever imagined, a horrified Olivia runs away thinking she’s left Catcher behind.When Olivia’s small town is wracked by its first murder, she never could have imagined her one night stand would reappear in the form of the GBI’s lead investigator. To her mortification, Catcher isn’t ready to let go of their sizzling chemistry, and he doesn’t understand the meaning of no. As things start to heat up between them, the body count starts to rise, and they’re led on a wild goose chase from back woods mountain Nudist Colonies to altercations with the Dixie Mafia. Can Olivia and Catcher survive to solve the murder while also not succumbing to their explosive passion?

Tight


Alessandra Torre - 2015
    In my life as a single, thirty-two year old woman. I had a good job, wonderful friends, my independence.I also hadn't got laid in three years. Hadn't been on a date in two. Had stopped counting calories and wearing makeup... a while ago.Then Brett Jacobs waltzed in. Caressed my thigh, dug rough fingers into my hair, lowered his soft mouth to my skin, took sexual control of my mind and stirred it all around with what he packed in his pants. He flipped my quiet life upside down and crawled into a place in my heart I thought was dead.The issue is his secret.The issue is her.The issue is that I don't even know she exists, and he thinks she's dead.The issue is that shit is about to hit the fan and I can't hold on to him tight enough.

You Loved Me At My Darkest


Evie Harper - 2014
    Kidnapped by a rich madman, Sasha is sold into slavery, while Lily is forced to join The Collection, a unique bevy of exotic beauties enduring frequent horrors at the hands of elite bidders. However, no amount of pain and suffering will break Lily, who will stop at nothing to save her younger sister. Possibly with help from an unlikely ally.Love is stronger than loyalty…Attempting to prove his allegiance to his employer, Jake is tasked with guarding the unruly and uncontrollable Lily. He can’t afford to help her in her quest to free Sasha—not if he hopes to fulfill his own agenda. But in their dark, gritty, tension-filled world, solace is taken wherever it’s found. Bonds are formed and hearts engage despite Jake’s resistance and both their attempts at self-preservation.When certain secrets come to light, the resulting explosion has breathtakingly bittersweet consequences that, by the end, may not leave everyone whole…or alive.

Dirty Angels


Karina Halle - 2014
    Please see the bottom of this description to see if this is the kind of book that you'll love or piss you off**For Luisa Chavez, a twenty-three year old former beauty queen, a better life has always been just out of her reach. Sure, she’s had men at her feet since she was a young teenager but she’s never had the one thing she’s craved – security. Having grown up in near poverty, her waitressing job in Cabo San Lucas can barely let her take care of herself, let alone her ailing parents. Every day is another unwanted advance, every day is a struggle to survive.When Salvador Reyes, the depraved leader of a major Mexican cartel, takes an interest in her, Luisa is presented with an opportunity she can’t afford to pass up. She’ll become Salvador’s wife and exchange her freedom and body for a life of riches – riches she can bestow upon her deserving parents. But Luisa quickly finds out that even the finest wines and jewels can’t undo the ugliness in her marriage, nor the never-ending violence that threatens her every move.Soon, Luisa is looking for an escape, a way out of the carefully controlled life she’s leading. She finally gets her wish in the worst way possible.As it is, being the wife of Salvador makes her an ideal target for rival cartels and there’s one particular man who needs Luisa as part of his cartel’s expansion. One particular man whose quest for power has destroyed lives, slit throats and gotten him out of an American prison. One particular man who will stop at nothing until he gets what he wants.That man is Javier Bernal. And he wants Luisa. He wants to take her, keep her, ruin her.Unless she ruins him first.***WARNING*** This book deals with drug cartels and as such it contains a lot of sex and violence and some violent sex. It can get pretty ugly, pretty dark and pretty crazy. There is drug use, abuse, a bit of torture and dubious consent. The hero is not a hero and the villains...well, they're even worse. If this sort of thing bothers you, PLEASE DO NOT READ IT. This ain't no cupcake farting unicorn kind of book. If you are even a bit squeamish about violence, brutality and rape, this is your warning to stay away from a book that you certainly will not like (and why read books that you know you won't like?)******While this is a spin-off of The Artists Trilogy, prior knowledge of the books is not needed. DIRTY ANGELS is the first in a trilogy, however each book can standalone and follows or introduces different characters***

Debt


Nina G. Jones - 2014
    Maybe I was bored, or lonely, or there was a void so deep inside of me that I needed something explosive to fill it. It was supposed to be safe. A thrill. A way to break through the monotony of everyday life. It was an illusion of danger that I could walk away from as soon as it was over. Except that it wasn’t. Because I had been in danger long before I ever invited it into my life. ———————My mission is almost complete. The bubbling boil of vengeance that heats my blood might finally simmer. She is the last piece of the puzzle. Once I destroy her, everyone who ever hurt me will have paid their debt. It was supposed to be quick and easy, but as soon as I met her it got complicated. Very complicated.DEBT is a standalone novel. 118k words. Adult/graphic content that may be difficult for some readers.

Not a Chance


S.C. Stephens - 2011
    Just goes to show - first impressions can be dead wrong. Makayla should have listened to her instincts. She never should have accepted a date with him, she never should have continued seeing him, and she definitely shouldn't have started falling for him.Image credit: Luigi Diamanti

Wanderlust


Skye Warren - 2013
    Hunter is a rugged trucker willing to do anything to keep her—including kidnapping. As they cross the country in his rig, Evie plots her escape, but she may find what she's been looking for right beside her.

My Dear Husband


Danielle Lori
    My Dear Husband…is a beautiful liarRelease date to be announced after the holiday - marriage in crisis- cheating- revenge cheating - angst that’ll make you puke - and, of course, an HEA with a cherry on the top