Book picks similar to
In the Midnight Rain by Barbara Samuel


romance
contemporary-romance
contemporary
mystery

Sweet Water


Christina Baker Kline - 1993
    When a grandfather she never knew bequeaths her a house and 60 acres of land in Sweetwater, Tenn., a restless young artist leaves New York to recover her past and rethink her future. Cassie Simon's mother Ellen died when Cassie was only three; raised in Boston by her grieving father, she never knew her maternal relatives. Unprepared for the thick veil of mystery that surrounds them, Cassie is especially bewildered by her brusque grandmother, whom rumor credits with hiding a terrible secret about Ellen's death. In alternating sections told from their respective points of view, Cassie and her grandmother fight their separate battles to cope with the truth about the tragedy. Kline perfectly renders each woman's voice: Cassie's, probing and often uncertain, propels the narrative and creates an appropriate level of psychological suspense; the grandmother's quavers with the weight of memory as Cassie's search forces her beyond family myth to a painful and perhaps dangerous truth. The result is a powerful, immensely readable tale of loyalty and betrayal, family and memory, made fresh by Kline's often beautiful and always lucid prose.

Worth the Weight


Mara Jacobs - 2012
    A new life. An old flame?Lizzie Hampton is literally a shadow of her former self. Having lost half her body weight, she's headed to her small hometown to test out her new body on an old flame. Just a harmless fling to get her self-confidence back before she returns to the city and the new man in her life.But Lizzie's plan has a few bumps in the road.Finn Robbins can't believe Liz is back in town. Desperate to be the holder of her innocence eighteen years ago, he never got the chance. Now she's back and he can finally check her off his to do list. But her friends, his son, and the mysterious Annie may have something to say about that.

Too Darn Hot


Pamela Burford - 2000
    Restaurant reviewer Lina Holland learned that lesson by watching her beloved mentor self-destruct, and she’s not about to make a similar mistake, even if the chef and owner of the restaurant she’s secretly reviewing is the most sexalicious hunk who ever seared a T-bone. It’s not enough to be scrupulously impartial, she must avoid even the merest whiff of favoritism. Date a restaurateur? She can’t allow herself to even think about it. Okay, she thinks about it, but that’s all. Really! Chef Eric Reid is a widower struggling to raise twin boys and keep his fledgling restaurant afloat long enough for word of mouth to lift it out of the red. Little does he suspect that the intriguing new customer groaning in ecstasy over his bourbon pecan tart is none other than the legendary Lina Holland, the reviewer whose thumbs-up could spell the difference between colossal success and the extermination of his lifelong dream. No one in the industry knows what Lina looks like, but he’s convinced she’s a brash, zaftig shrew who applies her makeup with a putty knife. When he finds out how wrong he is, the fun really starts! Throw in a buttinsky roommate, a lecherous ex-husband, bribery by chocolate, and the fishing excursion from hell, and the result is, well, too darn hot! Originally published by Zebra books, a division of Kensington Publishing Corp.

Barely Breathing


Pamela Clare - 2016
    Now, here she is—over thirty, out of a job and with little choice but to move back in with her father. Lexi knows it’s just a matter of time before she runs into Austin Taylor, her first boyfriend and her first heartbreak. She’s determined to show him she’s over him—until he steps out of a pickup truck and back into her life, looking sexy as hell in his mountain ranger uniform.As far as Austin is concerned, Lexi can turn her snazzy little convertible around and drive back to Chicago. After all, she ripped his teenage heart apart and turned her back on the town he loves. But from the moment he sees her again, he can’t get her out of his mind. Even her smile messes with his head. When an evening of conversation turns into something else, Lexi and Austin agree to be friends again—with benefits. But as Lexi starts making plans to return to the big city, Austin realizes he’ll lose her a second time unless he can show her that what she’s searching for has been right here all along.Note to readers: This is straight contemporary romance, not romantic suspense.

A Perfect Fit


Heather Tullis - 2012
    Learning her father picked him out to be her future husband, she is not amused, but neither can she back off the path they’ve begun together. But can two people miles apart in so many ways really make things work?

Forged in Fire


Trish McCallan - 2011
    When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before. Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm. As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.

Breaking Twig


Deborah Epperson - 2011
    Not even Twig’s vivid imagination, keen wit, and dark sense of humor is enough to help her survive the escalating assaults of Helen and a new stepbrother, but help comes from an unexpected source—Frank, her stepfather. Sometimes, having one person who loves and believes in you is all a girl needs to keep hope alive. Often raw and irreverent and sprinkled with all the Southern flavoring found in a good bowl of chicken and dumplings, BREAKING TWIG, is about finding love where we least expect it, destroying lives with easy lies, and realizing each of us determine our own truth. (Taken from author's website.)

The Light of the Fireflies


Paul Pen - 2013
    Before he was born, his family was disfigured by a fire. His sister wears a white mask to cover her burns.He spends his hours with his cactus, reading his book on insects, or touching the one ray of sunlight that filters in through a crack in the ceiling. Ever since his sister had a baby, everyone’s been acting very strangely. The boy begins to wonder why they never say who the father is, about what happened before his own birth, about why they’re shut away.A few days ago, some fireflies arrived in the basement. His grandma said, There’s no creature more amazing than one that can make its own light. That light makes the boy want to escape, to know the outside world. Problem is, all the doors are locked. And he doesn’t know how to get out.…

Lost in Distraction


B.J. Harvey - 2013
    A sexy stranger paid to protect her. Alone and shut off from the world, Elise Halliwell is simply going through the motions, waiting for the next step in her pre-destined life. Until a chance meeting with the dark-haired, blue-eyed Brax James shakes her to the core, achieving what everyone else before him has failed to do; he makes her feel again. As much as Brax wishes things were different, fate has not brought him into Elise’s life. His job is to keep her safe, not fall for the very woman he’s supposed to protect. Elise has no idea of the threat she faces and Brax wants it to stay that way. Unfortunately for both of them, they’ll have no say in the matter. Full of twists, turns, and revelations no-one sees coming, you won’t be the only one lost in distraction.*This book contains adult situations and explicit content/language.*

The Moonlit Garden


Corina Bomann - 2013
    So when a stranger delivers an old violin to her Berlin antiques shop and tells Lilly it belongs to her, she’s completely bewildered. Why should she be the one to inherit such an exquisite instrument?Together with her best friend, Ellen, and handsome musicologist Gabriel Thornton, Lilly sets out to explore the violin’s legacy. From England to Italy to Indonesia, she follows its winding trail. Along the way, she learns of Rose Gallway, a beautiful woman of English and Sumatran descent who lived among Sumatra’s lush gardens more than a hundred years earlier. A celebrated and sought-after musician, Rose once owned Lilly’s violin and regularly played concerts for Sumatra’s colonial elite—until, one day, she simply disappeared.As Lilly unravels the mystery behind Rose’s story—and uncovers other unexpected secrets—she’ll come to see her own life in an entirely new light. And as each shared discovery brings her closer to Gabriel, her heart might finally break its long-held silence.

Be My Love


Lucy Kevin - 2014
    and five beautiful, close-knit sisters who are each about to find their one true love.After four years on the Seattle mainland, when Hanna Walker returns to Walker Island to make a documentary about the infamous Peterson-Walker feud from the early 1950s, she’s shocked to realize that passions still run high. Especially when it comes to Joel Peterson, the one man who is totally off-limits… but that she’s never been able to stop dreaming about. The last thing Joel wants is for Hanna to dredge up the past, but when he realizes she’s determined to follow through with her documentary no matter what, he knows he has no choice but to join her. But despite vowing to hold back his growing feelings for her, as Joel works with Hanna to unravel the mystery of what really happened between their two families, he soon begins to see that love is an unstoppable force… and that sometimes two people are meant to be. BE MY LOVE is the first fun, sweet, and emotional contemporary romance in the Walker Island series from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Lucy Kevin.

Entangled


Barbara Ellen Brink - 2010
    One summer of her childhood is a mystery she intends to solve. But digging up her past also lays bare the skeletons of others, including her mother’s. Entangled between what she once believed and a new reality, will she be able to live with the consequences of full disclosure?

Slow Burn


V.J. Chambers - 2013
    She’d rather snort lines than think about that. She’d rather do shots of marshmallow-flavored vodka until she can’t remember.When Griffin Fawkes arrives with the news that her father’s dead, she isn’t sure if she cares. He wasn’t much of a father anyway. The only silver lining here is that Griffin’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and Leigh wants him bad.Griffin owes his life to Leigh's father. The man begged him to keep his daughter safe. But Griffin didn't expect a cocaine-fueled party girl who barely seems to care about her own safety. It seems like she'd rather destroy herself than anything else.Even worse, he didn't expect he'd care about her. He knows he's too damaged to ever really be with a woman. The best he can do is to make sure she’s safe from whoever could hurt her. Including herself. Including himself.Of course, fighting off men with guns is starting to seem easier than keeping his hands off Leigh.

Dangerous Passage


Lisa Harris - 2013
    Suspecting a serial killer, Avery joins forces with medical examiner Jackson Bryant to solve the crimes and prevent another murder. But it doesn't take long for them to realize that there is much more to the case than meets the eye. As they venture deep into a sinister world of human trafficking, Avery and Jackson are taken to the very edge of their abilities--and their hearts.Dangerous Passage exposes a fully-realized and frightening world where every layer peeled back reveals more challenges ahead. Romantic suspense fans will be hooked from the start by Lisa Harris's first installment of the new Southern Crimes series.

All Fired Up


Vivian Arend - 2014
    A red-hot collaboration from New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors VIVIAN AREND and ELLE KENNEDY.He’s ready to lead the wayParker Wilson never thought he’d go from battle-hardened soldier to romance expert, but after his stint in the Rangers, that’s exactly what happened. As the owner of DreamMakers Inc., he helps other men win in the love department, using every resource available to plan the perfect date. When a routine recon turns into an unexpected night of passion, Parker’s mission becomes more personal—and he won’t give up until Lynn Davidson is all his.She’s more than willing to followLynn is a goner from the moment she lays eyes on the delectable Parker. She’s just ditched her boring almost-boyfriend and is tired of sticking to the straight and narrow. It’s time to walk on the wild side, and what better way than in the arms of the most irresistible man she’s ever met? But when their red-hot affair is threatened, it’ll take a team effort to make their dreams come true.