Book picks similar to
Discovering Lucy by Laura Dunaway
romance
abuse
contemporary-romance
arc
Lost
Nadia Simonenko - 2013
Now, in her final semester of college, she still struggles against paralyzing fear just trying to speak up in class, and the terror and helplessness linger on in her nightmares.Across campus, Owen sees his scars in the mirror every morning while he gets ready for class. They remind him of the broken home he left behind, the father he hates and fears, and the little sister he couldn't protect. Now, in his final semester of college, he's scared that he may have to return to the hell he called home after staying away for almost five years.When Owen becomes a teaching assistant for one of Maria's classes, they find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. As the two learn each other's secrets and grow closer, they realize that although they may be lost, they're not alone anymore.This new adult contemporary romance is recommended for ages 17+ due to heavy subject matter.
Renegade
Laramie Briscoe - 2017
I make up my mind and stay in my lane, never veering off the course I set for myself. Going into the military? Did it. Serving overseas? Did it. Youngest member of the Moonshine Task Force? That’s me. Get my best friend’s older sister in bed? It was my pleasure. Convince the older sister to give me a chance? Working on it. Age means nothing to me. I’ve seen and done things men half my age never will. What I want more than anything is someone to share my life with. The work I do is dangerous and knowing I have someone at home might keep me under control. Everybody says I need a woman, and I know I do, but I also know which one I want. That woman, whether she admits it or not, is Whitney Trumbolt. Whitney Trumbolt Ryan is ten years my junior, but damn, being a cougar never felt as good as it did the night we spent together. Now all I want to do is go back to how things were before. But Ryan is my younger brother’s best friend, and where Trevor goes, Ryan goes. Instead I put my head in the sand and do my best to go about my life. Build up my confidence from a horrible divorce? Working on it. Make my wedding planning company the best in the south? Did it. Ignore the way my body trembles when I see Ryan? Epic fail. Freak out when I see a positive pregnancy test staring back at me? Complete with mascara running down my face and clutching my pearls. Looks like things aren’t gonna go back to the way they were. There’s a man in my life that won’t take no for an answer. Gone is sweet Ryan, and in his place is the one who makes my blood run hot, my cheeks turn red, and my heart beat heavily within my chest. The one I’m up against is the one I can’t say no to. Not when he becomes Renegade.
Georgia on My Mind
Marie Force - 2011
Stuck running the senior center her mother founded in Newport, RI, until a replacement director is found, Georgie dreams of returning to her glamorous life in Atlanta. As that life begins to unravel, she discovers a whole new one in Newport where the jogger turns out to be sexy detective and tree hugger Nathan Caldwell. Determined to get her mind off her many problems—including a possible threat to her own health—Georgie indulges in what she intends to be a no-holds-barred one-night stand with Nathan. Unfortunately, Nathan has other ideas and sets out to have a relationship with her.Tess, on the run from an abusive husband, and Cat, who raised her younger brother and sister, hook up with Nathan's brothers, Ben, an injured Iraqi war veteran, and Ian, a single-father and talented musician. Add a zany cast of seniors who seem determined to drive Georgie slowly mad with their never-ending needs and comparisons to her sainted mother, and you've got the ingredients for a fast-paced, often comical, emotional journey that leads Georgie straight to the home of her heart.Three romances for the price of one!
A Long Goodbye
Kelly Mooney - 2013
Ashton is tired of being told she's perfect, and tired of pretending to be someone she isn't. She wants to reinvent herself, if only for a short time and she hopes Nashville is the place to do it. Preferably with a smooth talking cowboy. With no one watching her every move, or so she thinks, Ashton finds the one person who finally sees her for the woman she wants to be. Dane Woods has just come home from fighting overseas after losing his best friend. Everyone, including himself expects him to reenlist for another tour, but he can't break a promise he made to his dying friend. The last thing Dane has on his mind while tailing a Southern Princess like Ashton Winslow is falling in love. She's supposed to be two week job, but it turns into so much more. Will Dane risk everything to be with Ashton or will his lies and betrayal destroy her love for him?
The Boys of Summer
C.J. Duggan - 2012
She wants nothing more than to forget the past haunts of high school and have fun with her best friends before the dreaded Year Twelve begins.To Tess, summer is when everything happens: riding bikes down to the lake, watching the fireworks at the Onslow Show and water bomb fights at the sweltering Sunday markets.How did she let her friends talk her into working?After first-shift disasters, rude, wealthy tourists and a taunting ex-boyfriend, Tess is convinced nothing good can come of working her summer away. However, Tess finds unlikely allies in a group of locals dubbed ‘The Onslow Boys’, who are old enough to drive cars, drink beer and not worry about curfews. Tess’s summer of working expands her world with a series of first times with new friends, forbidden love and heartbreaking chaos.All with the one boy she has never been able to forget.It will be a summer she will always remember.
Dark Lessons
Julia Sykes - 2017
That’s all it was supposed to be. So when my darkly domineering one-night stand turns out to be one of my instructors at Quantico, my life becomes far too complicated. I’m training as an FBI agent, but Jason has other forms of training in mind. Like bending me over his desk for a spanking.I try to resist him, but soon we’re stealing forbidden hours of lust when no one’s watching. It could cost us both our careers, but I can’t help myself. He’s broken, and I want to be his salvation.In return, he says he wants to protect me, to love me. But can he save me when my new job puts me directly in the path of danger?
Knocking Boots
Willow Winters - 2017
He’s a bartender with noncommittal tendencies. I’m looking for … the opposite. Commitment. Period.But drinks and a bet led to something it shouldn’t have: a fake relationship. Worse, a first date, a first kiss… and then more. He’s addictive and I can’t bring myself to accept the reality. That it’s all a lie and I’m fooling myself by thinking he could want more. That I could change him.He’s mine for as long as I keep on pretending like this is just for fun. As if I don’t want more… Like when he whispers my name, I pretend it doesn’t make my heart flip. Like when he holds me at night, I pretend I don’t want to lay in his bed every night.It's just a bet; just a lie... until it isn't.
Fighting Irish
Katy Regnery - 2018
...but it's been a long time since their childhood summers at Summerhaven. The Havens weren't the children who attended exclusive Summerhaven Camp in Center Sandwich, New Hampshire. They were the children of the owners, expected to “pull their weight” and absolutely forbidden to fraternize with the paying guests. But that didn't keep Rory from having a quiet, unrequited crush on gorgeous, popular, insanely-rich, Brittany Manion for three tortuous summers. When all-grown-up, recently-engaged Brittany books the off-season summer camp for her upcoming spring wedding, she immediately recognizes Rory as the scorching-hot boy who wouldn’t give her the time of day. Meanwhile, Rory, who senses that Brittany’s nuptials are less about Mr. Right and more about Mr. Right Now, launches the fight of his life to win the heart of the girl he’s always wanted.
Taking the Chance
Kelsie Rae - 2018
Luke. My husband’s ex-best friend and my once-upon-a-time confidante. As the truth of my predicament tumbles out of me, he offers me a place to stay.And because I’m desperate and vulnerable...I accept.After all, what other choice do I have?
Kiss the Girl
Susan Sey - 2012
It's not the work--she loves building hospitals, schools and orphanages for her family's humanitarian organization. But when her movie-star mother steals Nixie's boyfriend to generate publicity for their latest cause, Nixie snaps. She quits her job, walks away from her family, and boards a plane to the one place on earth she's never been. Home.Dr. Erik Larsen likes to keep his private life private, a word he doubts crazy-famous Nixie Leighton-Brace even knows. Fundraising, though? She's got that one nailed, and Erik's free health clinic is barely keeping the lights on. So when Nixie walks in and asks for a job, he gives her one. But he'll be damned if he hands over his heart along with it.Loving America's princess is no easy task. Neither is being America's princess, and both Nixie and Erik struggle to balance the scars of the past against the demands of their hearts. But with some courage, a little luck and a lot of love, they might just find their way home. Together.
Feels like Home
Evelyn Adams - 2014
But when her carefully constructed life crumbles around her, Autumn's forced to return to the small southern town that never let her forget she came from the wrong side of the tracks. Jude Southerland, the town doctor, is used to taking care of people and with a pedigree that has the Ladies Auxiliary reaching for their fans, he’s easily the town’s most eligible bachelor – a status he has no intention of changing. That is until he almost runs down the Maddox girl he never noticed in school and suddenly finds her lush curves, dark curls and blue eyes consuming his thoughts, day and night. Autumn would like nothing more than to live happily ever after with Jude. But with every local matron in the valley trying to marry him off to their own daughters, she knows they won’t let her forget that she's not good enough and never will be. With the chance to finally find happiness, can she overcome her family history and find the confidence she needs to believe in herself or will she let love pass her by?
A Dark Road
Amanda Lance - 2013
After all, the last thing a drug dealer needs is the pretty, new girl trying to be friends. Walking distractions like her lead to trouble, the kind that can get you 10 to 15 behind bars. Likewise, fencing champion Hadley Grayson isn’t thrilled about her family uprooting her during her senior year of high school. At least there’s James McKay, the quiet, mad scientist who is as adorable as he is mysterious.Though McKay may reject the idea of friendship, he gets one whether he wants it or not. But once the lies are told and the rumors spread, the dangers of meth making and dealing are impossible to avoid. Between secrets and overdosing classmates, McKay and Hadley will learn that loneliness can be a two-way street, changing both of their lives forever.
Angel
D.H. Sidebottom - 2013
Nathan Carter is her other half, her light, her passion. After three years of being together at university; three years of being joined, of a love so intense, passionate and spirited they thought their future was safe and endless but life always finds a cruel way to interfere and they soon find their relationship can’t withstand destiny’s intrusions and obstacles.Two decades later destiny apologises and brings them back together by sheer chance, re-igniting their intense passion, connection and love but they soon find that twenty years of life, secrets and lies creates difficulties and struggles even their bond might struggle to endure.When an evil from Olivia’s’ past returns to haunt them and rip apart everything they have managed to build back up can the lovers survive with their love and souls still intact…or their lives?This book contains explicit sex scenes, adult language and violence…oh and one hot alpha male! Enjoy!
UnWritten
Chelsea M. Cameron - 2014
Romance novelist by night.British single father.Someone else is writing this love story...Blair Walton isn't your average curvaceous tattooed children's librarian. She's also one half of bestselling romance author, Scarlet Rose. Along with her BFF Raine, she spends her nights writing books so steamy, she's afraid they would shock her Southern conservative grandmother to death . . . if she knew about them. That's why she and Raine write in secret.On deadline for their latest book and out of ideas, Raine suggests (demands) that Blair find a guy and "do some research". Declan Bennet has all the qualifications: He's British, looks fabulous in a suit, has glorious blue eyes and gets bonus points for being an amazing single dad to his adorable son, Drake. But what starts out as a research project quickly turns into something much more. And Blair's not the only one with secrets.
Almost Never
Amy Lamont - 2018
Son of an aging rock star, Declan Cooper is considered royalty on the Warren College campus. When he meets petite freshman Harper Warden, he dismisses her as just another groupie. He realizes his mistake pretty quickly, but despite his near-obsession with the premed student, he keeps his distance. The last thing she needs is the notoriety that comes along with being connected to his infamous family. Getting blown off by the sexy and popular King of Campus is the kiss of death for the new life Harper hoped to make for herself at college. Her only goal now is to get into medical school so she can leave her past, and Declan Cooper, far behind. But when the plans Harper made are threatened, Declan might be the only person who can help. All she has to do is trust him with a few small things—like her heart and her future.