Book picks similar to
Broken by J.B. McGee
romance
new-adult
contemporary
contemporary-romance
Stolen Wishes
Lexi Ryan - 2013
Intended for mature readers.**Cally…A sexy smile. Intense blue eyes. A goodness that makes him want to save me from these rumors when no one else would care. I didn't ask for a hero. William Bailey was never supposed to be anything more than a wish, a dream, an unrequited crush. Not for a girl like me--a girl whose fractured family has stolen her chance at a decent life.William…Since the death of my parents, I've always done what’s expected of me, what's "best" for me. Until Cally. The moment her haunted eyes meet mine, the fractured pieces of my heart feel whole again. I don’t just want to save her. I need her to save me.Stolen chances. Unbroken wishes. Two lonely souls grasping for hope in the darkness.**This novella takes place seven years before the events in WISH I MAY and shows William and Cally falling in love for the first time. It can be read before or after WISH I MAY or on its own.**
Edge of Disaster
A.M. Hargrove - 2012
A life of partying, alcohol, drugs and men has brought her near the edge of disaster. That is until one night while at work as a waitress in an upscale restaurant, she falls under the spell of one of her customers, Pearce Middleton. Once she gazes into his smoky gray eyes, her life takes on new meaning. But can she put her past behind her and allow herself to fall for the exciting and gorgeous Pearce, or will her lewd behavior come back to haunt her and ruin her chances of happiness forever?
A Moment
Marie Hall - 2013
Life didn't turn out the way I'd ever hoped it would. I got pregnant at 14. Same year my mom got diagnosed with MS. Dad bailed on us and my life felt like it suddenly started to spiral out of control. I'm 21 now, I go to college, I work hard, trying to make something of myself. I wasn't supposed to be at that burlesque bar Valentine's Day. I wasn't supposed to meet Ryan Cosgrove, but I did. And now nothing will ever be the same. Love born from pain... I'm a retired Marine, an MMA fighter, and when I was younger something terrible happened to me. Life is hard and I'm so tired of pretending its not. I'm in a burlesque bar, drowning my sorrows, trying to shut out the demons breathing down my neck always reminding me I'm not good enough. Then I see Liliana Delgado and something inside of me- something I'd thought long dead- stirs to life. I wonder... can she save me? I hope she can, because I don't think I can save myself. This is our moment...
Forever Innocent
Deanna Roy - 2013
On what should have been one of the happiest nights of her life, she and her boyfriend Gavin watched a nurse disconnect the ventilator from their seven-day-old baby. During the funeral two days later, Gavin walked out and never returned.Since then, her life has been a spiral of disasters. The only thing that has helped is her ability to black out whenever the pain gets too hard to bear, a habit that has become an addiction.When Gavin shows up in her astronomy class four years later, he is hell-bent on getting her back, insisting she forgive him. Corabelle knows she can’t resist the touch that fills the empty ache that has haunted her since he left. But if he learns what she has done, if he follows the trail back through her past, her secrets will destroy their love completely. And once again, she’ll lose the only person who always believed she was innocent.New Adult Contemporary Romance
His Wicked Games
Ember Casey - 2013
Can she beat him at his own game?Lily Frazer would do anything to save the Frazer Center for the Arts--even take on the infamous billionaire Calder Cunningham. When Lily breaks onto the Cunningham estate, she only wants to find and reason with Calder. (All right, all right, she wants to punch him in the face, too, but that's Plan B.) As it turns out, the arrogant billionaire is willing to give her the money he promised, but there's a catch: she must win it from him.Lily isn't about to give up the money without a fight (or let some haughty bastard seduce her), but she quickly discovers that there might be more to the brooding Calder than she initially perceived. As their games of cat and mouse become increasingly intense, she suddenly finds herself confused by her own emotions. Can she deny her attraction long enough to win the money she needs?
Where I End and You Begin
Andra Brynn - 2013
It may tangle, it may knot, it may stretch or fray, but it will never break. It is a future as indelible as the past.I hope that isn't true. I pity anyone destined to meet me.----For Bianca Ray, the past is always catching up, one way or another. Now in her third semester at college, it's doing it again. Too much drinking has led to plummeting grades and rising absences, putting her scholarships in peril. When she makes it clear that she needs help—all over the floor of her history class—she’s given one last chance to shape up: seek therapy and bring her grades up by the end of the semester, or she’s out.Enter Catholic seminarian Daniel McGuire. The last thing Bianca wants is an aspiring priest to counsel her on how to live her life, but the handsome graduate student is different from the holy rollers she fled from at home. Gentle and unobtrusive, he helps her pick up the pieces and find a new way to live: not running from the past, but facing it head on. But opening up her heart to release the pain means that something else can come in. As Bianca and Daniel grow closer, their relationship moves onto dangerous ground and the fragile courage Bianca has built up threatens to fail her. Can she exorcise the ghosts of her past, or will they catch hold and drag her down where not even Daniel can reach her?
Bet in the Dark
Rachel Higginson - 2013
And to add insult to injury, her overprotective family is suddenly clinging to her again, fighting to control every part of her life.Bad luck follows her hasty decision and when her roommate steals her identity and leaves town, Ellie is left to clean up a gigantic mess.Fin Hunter insists Ellie owes him seven thousand dollars from an online poker game and he won't stop until he collects it. Determined to keep her family out of her life, Ellie agrees to work for Fin in his illegal online poker operation. He's given her six weeks to pay off the debt.Soon sparks are flying between them and the only thing keeping her from falling for him is the debt she still owes and the money she doesn't have.At the end of those six weeks, Ellie will have to pay the mistaken debt or bet that her feelings for Fin will be worth more than the money. This book was previously titled Bet in the Dark.
Let Me Be the One
Lily Foster - 2014
Her boyfriend? The guy who came off as sweet and devoted, the life of the party? Try obsessed, out of control and hell-bent on ruining her life.One year later, a new and improved Darcy Donovan is back on campus and she’s got a plan. That plan doesn’t include Tom Farrell, or any other guy for that matter. He’s surfer-boy hot and he talks a good game, but don’t they all?Hell to the yes…She’s back.Going after his friend’s girl is wrong, but Tom is too hung up on Darcy to care. Screw principles, screw ethics, screw the bro code. An hour in her presence would lead the best of men to veer off the high road.And he has his work cut out for him. She still thinks he’s a joke, nothing more than a walking, talking one-night stand. What she doesn’t know is that Tom has spent the past year changing his ways. He’s not all talk, and he’ll do whatever it takes to prove it.But when a menace from Darcy’s past resurfaces and Tom’s past comes back to bite him hard, their one shot at happily ever after may be shot to hell.What you don’t know? Turns out that it can hurt you.Let Me Be the One is the first book in Lily Foster's Let Me series. Gripping and emotional, these stand-alone romances are intended for the 18 and older crowd due to mature language and sexual content.
Broken at Love
Lyla Payne - 2013
A rich kid who’s not used to being disappointed by life, Quinn and his sociopathic half-brother Sebastian create a frat house game intended to treat girls how they see them—as simple game pieces to be manipulated for their pleasure.College sophomore Emilie Swanson knows Quinn’s reputation—after all, he did send one of her sorority sisters into therapy earlier in the semester—but the game and his charm bring them closer together and soon she starts to believe there’s more to Quinn than people think.But what if the more is something darker than a game of toying with emotions and breaking hearts?Quinn and Emilie might be falling for each other, but there are secrets he’s not ready to tell—and lifestyle changes he’s reluctant to make. She willingly stepped on the court, but if Emilie finds out she started out as nothing as a pawn in Quinn and Sebastian’s twisted game, she might never forgive him.To his surprise, Quinn finds that he might finally care about someone more than he cares about himself…even if that means letting Emilie walk away for good.
Escaping Me
Elizabeth Lee - 2013
Forget the memory of walking in on her boyfriend in the middle of, well, another girl. Forget how she had her entire life planned out. And, forget about being perfect all the time. Unfortunately, she was Whitney Vandaveer and despite the fact that she moved to the middle of nowhere – she couldn't. He always knew he would never be more than nothing. No job, no money, no future. Cole Pritchett had accepted the fact that he would always be the screw up and he was okay with it. Until he met her. Here's the thing they quickly found out – sometimes we all need a little help escaping who we think we are.
Ten Days of Perfect
Andrea Randall - 2012
She favors practicality over spontaneity and rules over a broken heart.An encounter with a musician at a local pub forces Ember into making a decision to let go or hold on for dear life as passions are unlocked and deceptions revealed.
Alpha
Jasinda Wilder - 2014
Bills were piling up, adding up to more money than I could ever make. Mom's hospital bills. My baby brother's tuition. My tuition. Rent. Electricity. All of it on my shoulders. And I had just lost my job. There was no hope, no money in my account, no work to be found. And then, just when I thought all hope was lost, I found an envelope in the mail. No return address. My name on the front, my address. Inside was a check, made out to me, in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Enough to pay the bills and leave me some left over to live on until I found a job. Enough to let me focus on classes. There was no name on the check, just "VRI Inc.," and a post office box address for somewhere in the city. No hint of identity or reason for the check or anything. No mention of repayment, interest, nothing…except a single word, on the notes line: "You." Just those three letters.If you receive a mysterious check, for enough money to erase all your worries, would you cash it?I did.The next month, I received another check, again from VRI Incorporated. It too contained a single word: "belong."A third check, the next month. This time, two words. Four letters. "To me."The checks kept coming. The notes stopped. Ten thousand dollars, every month. A girl gets used to that, real quick. It let me pay the bills without going into debt. Let me keep my baby brother in school and Mom's hospice care paid for. How do you turn down what seems like free money, when you're desperate? You don't. I didn't.And then, after a year, there was a knock on my door. A sleek black limousine sat on the curb in front of my house. A driver stood in front of me, and he spoke six words: "It's time to pay your debt."Would you have gotten in?I did.It turns out $120,000 doesn't come free.
Kiss Me Like This
Bella Andre - 2014
Nothing seems to matter anymore...until the night Serena Britten unexpectedly ends up in his arms. Serena is a world-famous model who has only ever wanted to be normal, even though her mother has always pushed her to become a superstar. Though it isn't easy to try to leave everyone and everything she knows behind, Serena is determined to enroll in college. More than anything, she wants to turn her love for books into a new career that she actually loves. Only, she never expected to meet someone like Sean on campus—or to be instantly consumed by their incredible chemistry and connection. But when the pressures of her high-profile modeling career only get bigger and more demanding, will it make living a normal life as a college student—and falling in love with the hottest guy on campus—impossible?
Keep Me Still
Caisey Quinn - 2013
When she runs into Landen at freshmen orientation, she has a choice to make. Reinforce those steel walls she's built up around herself or give the only boy who can keep her still a second chance.Landen’s more than ready to tear down those walls, but this time when they come crashing down, they might bury her* This special edition of Keep Me Still includes the novella, Let You Leave:Layla Flaherty had the perfect life, or close to it. Until a stranger gunned her parents down right in front of her, leaving her with seizure inducing PTSD. After years of trying to pass as normal and failing miserably, she resigns herself to being invisible. But new to town Landen O’Brien sees her, and he likes what he sees. Much to Layla’s surprise, he doesn’t freak out when she has a seizure in front of him. He does the exact opposite, calming her until the tremors subside. But Landen has secrets of his own. Secrets that will either bind them together or tear them apart.
Scandalous
Ella Steele - 2012
Your muse is back. The thing that gave you passion, tormented you, and haunted you is back. You're reeling in ecstasy and dread. It's something you want, but can't ever have. And the one that brings the pain is pure, white as snow... and standing in front of you."One kiss could have changed Abby's life, but when it didn't happen, she ran. Jack was everything to her and when he didn't respond, Abby couldn't bear it. Everything about that night--leaning in close to his face, feeling the night breeze teasing her hair, the way his scent filled her head--was burned vividly into her mind, including the moment when Jack pulled away. There was no kiss. Abby was wrong. She was wrong about him, wrong about them. Maybe she didn't have to go to college two thousand miles away, but she did. She had to forget about him. Abby threw herself off the grid, disappearing completely from the life she knew. After completing her undergraduate degree, she enrolled in seminary. All contact with her old life was severed and she never looked back, until she was forced to.When Abby puts idealism into practice, her congregation throws her out. If she can survive a year on her own, they'll take her back, and continue to pay off her student loans--but if she fails, Abby is on her own with enough debt to fund a small town. Seminary wasn't cheap. With no place left to go, Abby returns to New York and her best friend takes her in. Desperate to make it on her own and prove she was right, Abby follows a job lead to an art studio on Long Island. It isn't until she hears Jack's voice that she freezes. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle as she turns to see Jack, ten years later, looking even more tempting than before.Fate is cruel. Abby left this life behind, but she's thrown back into it, head first. It's like someone hit rewind on her life and its ten years earlier. She's the cotton-mouthed girl that she always was around Jack, and now her future relies on the man who rejected her.SCANDALOUS 2 WILL BE RELEASED SPRING 2013