Book picks similar to
The Hardest Part by Heather London
romance
contemporary-romance
contemporary
abuse
Put Me Back Together
Lola Rooney - 2013
After six years, no one really knows what happened That Night. Not even her twin sister. Choosing a college 3,000 miles away from the truth, Katie throws herself into art classes and a love affair with ice cream. Katie’s biggest rule? No boys. Ever.But there is the little problem of Lucas Matthews. Former basketball star and total campus hottie, Lucas is the stuff girls have naughty dreams about—and he has the reputation to prove it! But that doesn’t stop liquid heat from running through Katie’s veins every time she sees him…You’ll Never Get Away With ItLetting Lucas in is the hardest thing Katie’s ever had to do. And telling him the truth? Impossible. Then Katie starts to get threatening texts and she realizes Lucas is the least of her problems. Her past has caught up with her and it wants to settle the score.I’m Coming For YouNow Katie must decide whether she wants to fight for her life, or leave everything—including Lucas—behind her forever...
Thou Shalt Not
J.J. Rossum - 2013
He had a job he loved, and was blissfully content in his on-again, off-again relationship with the striking, and highly sexual, Holly. But, life throws Luke another curveball with the arrival of the alluring April, a woman stuck in a tumultuous, violent marriage to a famous athlete. Luke soon finds himself torn between what is safe, familiar, and right, and what is dangerous, unknown, and forbidden.
For the Love of Raindrops
Beth Michele - 2015
But can that love weather any storm?
"Best friends forever, right, Dills?""Forever, Evie."I fell in love with her when I was just a boy.And then I never fell out of love. I just fell deeper.Sometimes the guy got the girl and they lived happily ever after. I wanted to be that guy, you know? Especially since I couldn't imagine loving anyone else. But this wasn't your typical love story.This was our story.**Please note this novel is only recommended for readers age 17+ due to mature language and young adult sex, and may also contain some possible emotional triggers.**
Relentless
Anna Wells - 2014
The sex was incredible but she doesn't want their one night to ruin their friendship.The last thing Jordan Marsh wants is to remain friends with Michaela. They’d crossed the line from friends to lovers and that was where he was going to stay, after all he’d been relentlessly plotting her seduction for months.Now Michaela has woken up to a slight hangover, a relationship with a guy she thought she knew, a mother planning a wedding, and a brother and a best friend who think it’s important to run a background check on your new man. What could be more normal?Just as Michaela is beginnings to adjust to the status of their new relationship things start exploding; literally. Warning: This book is funny, steamy and contains sex scenes with chocolate that some readers might find delicious.
Let Me Go
D.C. Renee - 2014
One word changed his life. Mason Tredwell had it all. He was a good looking, well-respected doctor. He had money, power, and friends. He never worried about finding a woman to warm his bed. But that all changed when he was wrongfully accused of rape. And now, after five years in prison and the loss of everything he cared about, he wanted revenge.Abandoned as a baby and bounced around different foster homes, Kat Gingham never really had a charmed life. But now, things were really falling apart. She had no money, no job, and even her lying, cheating boyfriend was gone too. She allowed herself one night to cry about her situation before she picked herself back up. But when she woke up, she was no longer at home, and she was no longer alone. She was facing Mason, a guy who claimed she ruined his life. And he’s hell-bent on breaking her down, humiliating her, making her feel like he has all these years.With tension flaring, questions arising on both sides, and answers truly vague, one question remains: Will Mason let Kat go or are they both in too deep?
Concealed
Victoria Michaels - 2013
Desperate for a new start, she leaves home but, during her travels, witnesses something that will forever alter the path of her life. On the run for the last six years, Sydney finds herself living the life of a nomad until she one day stumbles into a small town and hopes she’s finally found a place to put down roots. With a good job in a local diner and, for the first time ever, friends who feel like family, things start looking up for Sydney. The biggest shock of all is catching the eye of the town’s most eligible bachelor, the sexy sheriff, Wade Jenkins.Sparks fly between them, and it’s not long before Sydney believes Elton, Missouri could be the home she’s always wished for. But Sydney’s past and her secrets have a way of catching up with her. When a brutal murder shakes the small town, Sydney is terrified that the countdown has begun on her time in Elton.Have the shadows from her past found her again? The people who mean the most want her to stay, but that would put everyone, including her daughter, at risk. Can Sydney put her faith in Wade or will she keep running from a danger that even she doesn’t fully understand?
Two Truths and a Lie
Ashley Stoyanoff - 2015
I left everything behind—family, friends, school. It seemed like a good idea at the time. My only option, really, until I realized running from a police officer isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.It’s been exactly three-hundred and sixty-five days since I left home, but I’m finally ready to take the step I should have taken a year ago. I’m done hiding. I’m done running. I’m going to take my life back.It was supposed to be easy. A meeting with Jason Pierce, a private investigator, was set up for me. All I had to do was go to him, let him do his thing, and then I could go home, or so I thought.That is, until I met Jason and things got … complicated.
Scars
Jaimie Roberts - 2016
At least, that’s what I thought. But you changed all that. You are always there ... Always watching ... Always waiting in the shadows. You send me flowers and messages. You stalk me, trace my every movement... Until that one day, in a silly game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, when I finally get to feel you—have a taste of you ... It left me wanting more. One catastrophic day, my wish is granted. Just past my eighteenth birthday, tragedy strikes and I watch my family die before my eyes. You are there. You rescue me. You choose my life over my older sister’s, and I hate you for that. I hate you for taking me and imprisoning me. You say it’s for my sake, but I know it’s for your own. You make me see that my life could be much worse without you in it... You make me see true darkness. It is in that darkness you make me desperate for your presence, your touch, your caress. You make me need you... You make it impossible for me to live without you… And then, eventually… You make me fall in love with you. Secrets will always wound the ones twisted within their web of lies... But the ones I’m tangled in ... are deadly. WARNING: Although this book (overall) is not a dark read, one chapter is an exception, and contains the following triggers: childhood sexual/emotional abuse with some intensity in one particular scene.
Pieces of Me
Ann Garner - 2013
When she starts her freshman year at Cedar Mountain University, she isn't focused on making friends or falling in love. She just wants to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and fit them back together the best she can.Cole Marsh hadn't settled down since getting his heart broken three years before. But one look at the sexy brunette with the sad blue eyes and he’s lost. But can he convince her to trust him enough to put the past behind her?
Dark Protector
Celia Aaron - 2017
Charlie shone like a beacon in a world that had long since lost any light. But she was never meant for me, a man that killed without remorse and collected bounties drenched in blood.I thought staying away would keep her safe, would shield her from me. I was wrong. Danger followed in my wake like death at a slaughter house. I protected her from the threats that circled like black buzzards, kept her safe with kill after kill.But everything comes with a price, especially second chances for a man like me. Killing for her was easy. It was living for her that turned out to be the hard part.Author's Note: This is a full-length romance novel. It's not a super-dark read, no trigger warning. Explicit violence and hot sex included. HEA, no cheating.
Player in Paradise
Rebecca Lewis - 2014
She’s not looking for a relationship, and the agency has a no-dating clients policy, but when she’s tasked with handling overly-flirtatious 23-year-old bad boy actor, Austin Ford, keeping things strictly professional may be harder than she thought. When Austin is caught cheating on his 19-year-old actress “girlfriend” Cassidy Evans, Olivia’s boss sends the celebrity couple on a romantic Hawaiian vacation to gain some positive press. She instructs Olivia to tag along to keep an eye on their behavior, but soon the getaway to paradise turns into a nightmare as Cassidy concocts a crazy new PR stunt, while Austin tries his hardest to take back control of his life. Olivia wants to help Austin, but is she willing to risk her job and future career reputation for the sexy, sweet-talking Hollywood player?**Mature Content Warning** Not recommended for readers under the age of 17 due to mature language and sexual content.
Exquisite Betrayal
A.M. Hargrove - 2013
The other is to meet her favorite author of romance novels, R.T. Sinclair. What she doesn’t realize is that the sexy green-eyed god she rams into at the airport is the real R.T. When they keep running into each other, she’s shocked, but excited, because the attraction is irresistible.Ryland Thomas Sinclair doesn’t want anyone to know his true identity. He’s the author that all women love, but everyone thinks he’s a female. He hides his persona behind the public face of his twin sister, keeping his own a secret. But after meeting the lovely Fallon, his intentions to avoid a relationship come to a screeching halt. She’s put an unwanted kink into his perfectly laid out plans. His unusual reaction surprises him because after a heart-shredding breakup a few years ago, he’s managed to avoid women at all costs. Resisting Fallon becomes more difficult than he imagines. Soon things are spiraling out of control, until a major miscommunication has Fallon walking out of his home and his life. Will Ryland Thomas succeed in losing the woman he loves? Or can he win her back?
Where We Left Off
Megan Squires - 2016
4,384 days: Their time apart. When he last saw her she was lying in a hospital bed, purpled with bruises, sewn together with crude stitches, and unconscious of his presence at her side. Heath figured he’d never see her again. That’s what happened to teenage love ripped apart by a cross-country move. But when Mallory shows up in California twelve years later, he knows he can’t last another minute without her. And Mallory feels it, too. But they’ve both let others into their hearts to fill the absence, and they’re not the same naïve kids from before. Time has changed them, but has it changed their love? Is it possible, after more than a decade apart, to pick up where they left off?
Swear on This Life
Renee Carlino - 2016
As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer.Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.That’s because the novel is patterned on Emiline’s own dark and desperate childhood, which means that “J. Colby” must be Jase: the best friend and first love she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Far from being flattered that he wrote the novel from her perspective, Emiline is furious that he co-opted her painful past and took some dramatic creative liberties with the ending.The only way she can put her mind at ease is to find and confront “J. Colby,” but is she prepared to learn the truth behind the fiction?
Outnumbered
Shay Savage - 2018
After spending most of my formative years in prison, I prefer an isolated existence in the wilderness of Canada’s Northwest Territories, making what little cash I need guiding tourists to the best hunting grounds. I have no desire for company; I crave solitude instead, especially during the subarctic winter months, but what am I supposed to do when I come across a woman in distress? I can’t just leave her to die in the cold, and a storm is on the way. So now we are confined to my secluded cabin, and I quickly realize there’s something not quite right about Seri—or is her name Netti? She switches moods faster than a snowshoe hare changes direction. In fact, I’m starting to think there’s more than one person behind the mystifying woman’s intense, green eyes. Physically, only two of us are trapped inside the rustic cabin, but I still feel outnumbered.