Book picks similar to
Romancing the R.A. by Ashelyn Drake


new-adult
romance
contemporary
college-romance

Breaking Sin


Teresa Mummert - 2012
    Sinthia wants to escape college unscathed and move on with her plans for a perfect life, but an unlikely friendship with Collin, the resident bad-boy, makes her rethink what she wants.

The Intern, Volume 1


Brooke Cumberland - 2014
    Cecilia isn’t your typical college student. Hell, she isn’t a college student at all, but that doesn’t stop her from applying for one of the biggest and prestigious enterprises in the Midwest.She wants it. She takes it.She doesn’t let anything get in her way when it comes to finding out the truth.When Bentley Leighton, soon-to-be CEO of Leighton Enterprises, meets “Ceci,” he’s instantly impressed. He doesn’t have time to train a new intern. However, when he sees her that first day, his intentions begin to change.He’s the boss. She’s the intern.Nothing can happen. It’s against the company rules.Then again, some rules were made to be broken.What starts as innocent flirting becomes raveled up into so much more—secrets, lies, deceit.*The Intern is a three-part romantic suspense serial.*Not suitable for readers under 18.

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...

Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories


Stephanie PerkinsNina LaCour - 2016
    Whatever the reason, summer is the perfect time for love to bloom. Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.Head, scales, tongue, tail / Leigh Bardugo --The end of love / Nina LaCour --Last stand at the Cinegore / Libba Bray --Sick pleasure / Francesca Lia Block --In ninety minutes, turn north / Stephanie Perkins --Souvenirs / Tim Federle --Inertia / Veronica Roth --Love is the last resort / Jon Skovron --Good luck and farewell / Brandy Colbert --Brand new attraction / Cassandra Clare --A thousand ways this could all go wrong / Jennifer E. Smith --The map of tiny perfect things / Lev Grossman

Fame, Love, and other lessons


Jo Frances - 2012
    Most of them were notorious for their random hook-ups and bad boy ways, and Luke wanted to keep his beautiful sister far away from them.But Jamie falls hard for one of them anyway---the star player, Chase Reston, who has a magnetic sex appeal and a reputation to match. For his part, Chase tries to stay away from his friend and teammate's innocent little sister, but his attraction to Jamie is intense and hard to resist. Their idyllic first love relationship is quickly put to the test as Chase gets drafted into the NBA and Jamie is discovered as a model. Thrust into the fast paced world of celebrity culture and paparazzi while trying to remain true to themselves and to each other proves to be more than their relationship can withstand. After their breakup, a heartbroken Chase struggles with the demons that caused him to push away the only girl he ever loved. Meanwhile Jamie tries to move on from betrayal by quickly becoming involved with Sean Foley, a jaded rock star used to getting anything he wants. But this is no casual fling for Sean. Tired of the emptiness in his life, he knows he can give Jamie the love and commitment she wants. As Chase watches all this unfold through the tabloids, he has to decide: does he love Jamie enough to let her go on with her new life? Or will he step up and ask her to take another chance on him?

Broken


J.B. McGee - 2012
    She is surrounded by friends who seem to have everything she doesn't: money, social standing, and happily married parents. While dealing with the loss of her mother, she experiences her first heartbreak. She commits herself to her studies and runs away from any emotions that aren't safe. Bradley Banks, a confident CEO and commercial architect, who has long time commitment issues forces Gabby to feel again, but will he be her next heartbreak?

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?

Long


B.B. Hamel - 2016
     Gibson Evans is the best college football quarterback in the country. He’s tall, broad, tattooed, and so incredibly handsome. And he got me pregnant. It was supposed to be just one night, but a broken condom changed all of our plans forever. People treat him like a hero, but I think he’s a total prick. Gibson gets whatever he wants, and now suddenly he wants me. But I have enough to deal with. I have to stop daydreaming about his hands between my thighs and concentrate on having this baby while still managing to graduate on time. He wants to make a deal. If I promise to spend time with him, he’ll help me with my final biology research. That means an entire semester of studying Gibson’s body. I’m not sure I can do this. One second I can’t stand to be around him, and the next I’m touching his ripped muscles and trying to suppress my excitement. I’m terrified he’ll ruin everything if I let this become more than just work. Long is incredibly steamy and features some very dirty language. It’s only recommended for audiences 18+. Long is a standalone, full-length novel. No cliffhanger. Guaranteed HEA. **For a limited time, Long includes Smash: A Stepbrother MMA Romance**

Love Surfaced


Michelle Lynn - 2015
    We stayed on our designated sides of the relationship circle. Ignoring swarming butterflies.Brushing off skipped heartbeats.Settling on lingering stares.Here’s the secret … a hand extended over that invisible line once, exponentially changing the equation. I was convinced we could make our relationship work until Tanner broke the trust he embedded in me from the age of seven. One deceit of mega proportions and the relationship we built for that short month vanished. I swore never to speak to him again and it’s worked. Until now—two years later, when my brother’s wedding places me face-to-face with the best man—Tanner McCain. Leaving one equation to be solved. Can love surface twice?

In the End


Erika Ashby - 2013
    It's also a novella and even though it's a prequel to Moving Forward, it still needs to be read last.*Jake Reynolds’ life had always been perfectly mapped out for him as he was growing up. The only time he ever felt like he had any control over it was when he was inside the cage—the same cage that held no for sure outcome. In his twisted mind being inside that ring with his opponent was the most freeing feeling. In that moment alone he was able to let his perfected guard down and be who he wanted to be. From the outside looking in, everything about Jake’s life looked perfect, but he knew that he wasn’t. His whole life had been set up for him before he was even born, and even though it’s not the life he wanted, he continued living it. When you have everything you could ever want at your fingertips, why screw it up? That was his mindset until the night Jesika showed up at his fight. He knew she was different from the get-go. He also knew he didn’t deserve her, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to try. Jake had skills inside and out of the cage and he was known to always get what he wanted no matter the risk. But was he willing to change who he had always been in order to keep the one that he thought was worth the fight? Will it all be worth it in the end?

Cry Baby


Ginger Scott - 2018
    He doesn’t really have a choice, born into a gang that has a chokehold on every kid that roams its streets. He gave his life to them willingly, knowing if he did then one day this kingdom, led by boys drunk with power and ruled by fear, would all be his.He was loyal through it all. Loyal when prison took his dad away. Loyal when his face was touched by the cold metal of the rival gang’s gun. Loyal even though his mom begged him to run the moment she returned home from rehab.He thought about becoming someone else. It was hard not to crave the life of a regular 17-year-old. It’s the only reason he stayed in school—to pretend. But he always fell back in line.Loyal.Riley Rojas didn’t belong in Tristan’s real world. She should have only been part of the fantasy, one of the many faces he got to pretend with amidst rows of metal chairs and desks and whiteboards with assignments. But there she was, moving boxes from the back of an old pick-up into a house Tristan had shot up on a dare with his friends only a few months before.Tall enough to look him in the eyes and strong enough to fill his shadow, Riley took up space on his streets, her loud mouth fearless in the face of the gang leaders who terrified everyone else. She pushed Tristan around on the hard court, and she balled better than his friends—better than him sometimes. She challenged him. She needed him. He liked it. And when her pale blue eyes stared into his, he quit wanting to pretend.He couldn’t ask her to leave because she’d only dig her heels in deeper. He couldn’t ask because he didn’t want her to go. She was blurring his lines. She was testing his loyalty.He was falling in love.And it was going to tear him apart.

The Summer I Gave Up Boys


Kassandra Kush - 2013
    To focus on work, reading, and her tan. But then she meets up with her old high school nemesis, Isaiah Winters, on the way home, and he seems more interested in being friends than enemies. Can Kaliyah lower her walls and get over seven years of pushing Isaiah away and find out what it would be like to actually be with him? With her best friend going boy-crazy, a twenty-first birthday looming on the horizon, Isaiah continually showing up on her doorstep, and an ex that seems to want her back, Kaliyah’s summer promises to be anything but quiet.

The Rules of Regret


Megan Squires - 2013
    Her boyfriend of six years just left for a high-powered summer internship, though in reality he’s been absent for much longer than that. This newfound freedom wasn’t a part of Darby’s plans, but as she’s come to discover, plans only exist on paper, not in reality.And guys like Torin Westbrook aren’t supposed to exist in reality, either. But he does, with his disheveled curly hair, irresistible dimples, and endearingly quirky habit of reciting quotes from classic movies and ancient thinkers. When Darby meets Torin as a fellow counselor at the survival camp she impulsively applies to, she’s certain his main goal is to turn her world upside-down. But Darby’s not sure she can adapt to Torin’s ways of viewing his past and the tragedies he's faced. Because she’s had her own share of heartache, too, and as much as she wants to believe that it’s all been for a purpose, her grief hasn’t allowed her to get to that point. Yet the more Darby is around Torin, the more she craves the freedom to break out of her carefully constructed routine and mindset and fall into something new. She’s just not sure that she should be falling for Torin along the way.(The Rules of Regret is a non-explicit, young/new adult romance.)

A Perfect Mess


Zoe Dawson - 2012
    He was always the unpredictable one, the one who would be brash enough to make it big self-publishing horror novels on the internet. He promised never to tell, but everyone knows you can never trust an Outlaw.Then a year later, in the middle of the night, she receives a phone call at Tulane. Her aunt, who took her in after her mother’s death, is in a coma under suspicious circumstances. Now she has to face that one person who knows all about what she did that summer—sexy Booker. Returning to Hope Parish to be with her aunt, stirs up all those ugly memories. When Aubree starts getting threats, she can’t help but wonder if what she did last summer was tied to her aunt’s “accident.” Afraid, she turns to the only person who knows the truth and Booker doesn’t hesitate to offer his broad shoulder for her to lean on. But Booker has a secret of his own that could crush their fledgling relationship.As the hot, sultry summer days move on, she finds that even a perfectly smart girl can lose her heart to a perfectly bad boy. What is she going to do when someone starts asking questions Aubree doesn’t want to answer? She’s knee deep into a terribly dangerous, wholly life changing, who-can-she-really-depend-on perfect mess.A Perfect Series: Three perfect girls, three perfect secrets, one unholy trinityA Perfect Mess, Book #1 – the girl most likely to succeed, an unpredictable Outlaw, and a dangerous secret that could be the death of her.A Perfect Mistake, Book #2 – A preacher’s daughter, a reckless Outlaw, and a secret that will change her life forever.A Perfect Dilemma, Book #3 – The town’s poor little rich girl, a sweet-talking Outlaw, and a secret that will ruin all that she holds dear

Dragonfly


Leigh Talbert Moore - 2013
    Pulling Anna into their extravagant lifestyle on the Gulf Coast, Lucy pushed her outside her comfort zone and Jack showed her feelings she's never experienced... Until he mysteriously withdrew.Anna turned to her internship at the city paper and to her old attraction for Julian, a handsome local artist and rising star, for distraction. But both led to her discovery of a decades-old secret closely guarded by the twins' distant, single father.It's a secret that could cost her the boy she loves and permanently change all their lives.