Book picks similar to
Amanda's Blue Marine by Doreen Owens Malek
romance
contemporary
romantic-suspense
fiction
Justified Deception
Patricia Watters - 2011
Ruth's private investigator is all but certain that ranch owner, Matt Kincaid's, adopted daughter is Ruth's child. But even though Ruth lands the job as nanny to Matt's six-year-old daughter, she must tread carefully. Matt's the maverick in a powerful family of lawyers and politicians and she can't predict what Matt or his family might do if the adoption's challenged. However, Ruth's carefully laid plans go awry when she finds herself falling in love with the man who might have stolen her child.
In Deep Shitake
Patricia Mason - 2012
Take one devastatingly handsome movie star.Add one outrageously sexy female private eye with a penchant for food-word obscenities.Mix in a dose of mistaken identity and a handful of Russian mobsters...And they're all In Deep Shitake.
Leather and Lace
Jessie Evans - 2014
Descended from Lonesome Point, Texas's founding family, Mia grew up hearing tales of an old Irish curse that had followed the Shermans to America. At age twenty-four, Mia is still terrified of the stories, because they aren't stories. They are a warning about what will happen if Mia allows love and romance into her life. The curse struck Mia's grandmother and her great-great-whatever grandmother, and Mia knows she could be next. The first-born daughter of every generation is cursed to lose her husband on her wedding night, which is one of the many reasons Mia has sworn off relationships.Until the fateful day Sawyer Kane rides his Harley into her life ...Rancher turned restoration expert, Sawyer Kane, can't believe his luck when the feisty owner of the lingerie shop next to his hotel turns out to be the curator of his latest project, a ghost town he's been sent to restore. He's looking forward to long, hot days talking history, and hotter nights with Mia, but the redhead with the killer smile seems determined to keep him at a friendly distance. But when a dangerous man from Mia's past arrives in town, Sawyer finds himself drawn into her inner circle, and into the legend of Lonesome Point itself.Can true love conquer all, even a centuries-old curse? Mia and Sawyer may be the first to find out.
Craze
Anne Conley - 2014
Straight into the arms of the eye-candy she’s been trying not to flirt with on her lunch break. But whose side is he on?Ryan’s security firm is having a hard time getting off the ground, and this may be just the job to help the company out. But pseudo-bounty hunter isn’t really what Pierce Securities is trying to get a name for. When he finds out their target is the classy lady from the park, all of his senses go on high alert. What do these men want with her?When Krista is forced into Ryan’s sanctuary in the woods, she realizes just how wild he is, and that she doesn’t want to tame him. He may feel his methods of protection endangered her, but without Krista in his life, Ryan is crazed. This is book #1 in the Pierce Securities, a Romantic Suspense series by Anne Conley, author of the Stories of Serendipity and The Four Winds.
Empathy
Ker Dukey - 2014
They say some people are born with decreased activity in the front central lobe causing them a deficiency in empathy. Maybe that’s true about me but whether I was born this way or created in a moment of evil, empathy was something I didn’t possess until her green eyes met mine in the mirror and I couldn’t take her life. I didn’t want to feel, didn’t want this woman in my life complicating how I lived but she was there at every turn. Sent to haunt me for my sins. Her light so bright she provoked a shadow from everyone she touched. When a job turns bad quickly altering my life forever I’m forced to feel. When nothing is making sense I’m forced to face truths I never would recover from. When life drowns you in its cruelty you don’t know which way the current will drag you or who you’ll become once you re-surface. Melody:I was a daughter I was a studentI was a victimDid I have his love? Did I make him feel?Did I have his empathy?When the actions of a soulless killer forces sorrow into my veins I never dreamed the man healing my wounds would be the one to leave the worst scar. His love would scar my soul. Scars are permanent; I will never feel the relief from them. Will I learn to live with them, remember why I have them and learn never to let him close enough to inflict more? Will I eventually cover them… like tattoos coating them with new memories, new love and new starts? I didn’t know these answers because the pain was too suffocating, the only thing I knew was they will always be under the surface lingering. He had scars too, from his sins. There is nothing that can cover them, they were too deep, too ugly, too dark and they marked us both forever.Warning: This book will mess with your mind. It is a very dark, sexy, twisted romance novel. 18+ only.
Against The Odds
Mara Jacobs - 2012
And I'm good. Very good.But, I also have a little bit of a problem with placing bets on a sporting events. Not so good.Sometimes my little problem becomes a whole lot of trouble and I need to resort to some, shall we say, less than stellar actions to get out of debt. So, I become my alter ego, JoJo, and fix college basketball games. Hey, a victimless crime, no one's the wiser, and it's better than the alternative, which is a drive into the desert with my loan shark and a shovel in the trunk. Although, it has to be said, my loan shark is pretty good looking.I love Vegas, and I love the life I've built, but when one of my friends is murdered, and another one shot at, I know I need to take a serious look at myself. And I need to call in the big guns. Even if that means teaming up with detective Jack Schiller, a man who's dealing with his own problems. But dang, he sure is sexy.I'm just trying to juggle protecting my friends, helping sexy detective Jack while not letting him get to close, and finding a murderer. And, oh yeah, no one can learn about JoJo.Because if they do, there's no way I'll be able to bluff my way out.
Close to Home
Suzanne Ferrell - 2012
I’m Lorna Doone. Yep, spelled just like the cookie and I own the Peaches ‘N Cream Café here in Weston. You might think nothing much happens in a small mid-western town, but as my friend Harriett says, things aren’t always what they appear. Take our girl Emma for example…”Emma Lewis has a lot on her plate. The single mother of two precocious twin boys and an aging mother who is having trouble getting through each day, the last thing Emma needs is a man in her life, especially a doctor. So when the town’s doctor goes on vacation and his handsome nephew takes over, Emma is shocked to not only find him standing in her bedroom, but accusing her of being a neglectful parent.Clint Preston came to Westen for the year to fill in as the town doc while his uncle took a long needed vacation. Clint also needed a sense of peace and calm to try to find his passion for medicine burned out by long shifts in an urban hospital’s ER. Angered to find two boys in his clinic with broken wrists and no accompanying parent, he is determined to confront their mother. The feisty redhead he meets quickly dispels his belief that she’s a neglectful mother, but he can see her situation is more critical than she wishes to face and finds himself volunteering to help care for her sons and the remodeling of her home.As Emma and Clint forge a relationship among the slightly off-beat characters that inhabit Weston a menace from Emma’s past threatens her and her sons. Clint and Emma join forces to prevent the loss of either boy and the love they’ve discovered in each other’s’ arms.
Burns So Bad
Anne Marsh - 2013
The jump team’s bad boy, Rio Donovan is one hundred percent pure, sensual trouble. He never backs down from a fire or a dare and he loves putting it all on the line when he parachutes into the heart of the fire. When the fire camp gets a much-needed new player, however, Rio lands in uncharted territory. The jump team’s newest member is sexy, strong—and female. She’s supposed to be just one of the boys, but Rio burns to claim her one heated kiss at a time. This jump, Rio Donovan’s putting it all on the line. Body and heart. INTO THE FIRE… AND INTO LOVE Kissing a fellow smoke jumper would be career suicide and Gia Jackson has worked too hard and too long to earn her spot on Strong’s jump team to jeopardize it all now for a man. The love-em-and-leave-em boys of summer aren’t her type and she’s hiding a few secrets of her own, but, when her chute tangles with Rio’s on a jump, he’s thrown into her arms. Literally. She’s held firm on the fireline for years—but can she hold the line now against Rio’s seductive charm?
Damaged
Pamela Callow - 2010
But then the teen is brutally murdered. And it isn't only Kate who wonders if her legal advice led to the girl's death.How far are you willing to go to redeem yourself?Put on notice by Randall Barrett, the firm's charismatic managing partner, Kate must fight for her career, for her reputation - and for redemption.Unwilling to live with the damage she may have caused, Kate pursues the case on her own and unearths some chilling facts.Facts that lead straight to the heart of a legal conspiracy.Facts that lead Kate directly into the surgically skilled hands of the Body Butcher. The first book in the Kate Lange legal thriller series. A Levy "Need to Read" pick with Top Ten Bestseller display. Now under option for television development.
Guns 'N' Tulips (Short Story)
Kristine Cayne - 2013
After months of scheming and strategizing, the day of the big heist--and Conner's chance to get his old life back--finally arrives, but right from the start, Conner's plans fall apart. Even worse, the woman he loves is trapped in the crosshairs of the Bank Bandits' murderous leader, and Connor is her only hope for survival.
Lamb to the Slaughter
Karen Ann Hopkins - 2014
To solve the murder, she must investigate the nearby Amish community with the help of a man who was shunned years ago. Lamb to the Slaughter is a story about the intertwining lives of three unlikely people in an Indiana Amish Community and the devastating results when a rebellious teenage girl is found shot to death in a corn field during the harvest. Serenity Adams is the newly elected young sheriff in the country town of Blood Rock and besides dealing with the threatening behavior of her predecessor, she now has a dead Amish girl on her plate. At first glance, the case seems obvious. The poor girl was probably accidentally shot during hunting season, but when the elders of the Amish community and even the girl’s parents react with uncaring subdued behavior, Serenity becomes suspicious. As she delves deeper into the secretive community that she grew up beside, she discovers a gruesome crime from the past that may very well be related to the Amish girl’s shooting. Serenity enlists the help of the handsome bad-boy building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who left the Amish when he was nineteen and has his own dark reasons to help the spunky sheriff solve the crime that the family and friends who shunned him are trying desperately to cover up. Serenity’s persistence leads her to a stunning discovery that not only threatens to destroy her blossoming romance with Daniel, but may even take her life in the end.
Beneath This Mask
Meghan March - 2014
Son of a congressman. Successful businessman in my own right. With a résumé like mine, women have never been a challenge.Until I met her. This sexy, tatted-up bad girl wasn’t part of my plans, but that punch to my gut every time I see her tells me I have to know more.She’s a mystery. An enigma. A challenge. I’m going to figure her out — and then I’m going to make her mine. We’ll find out what she’s hiding... beneath this mask.
The Edge of Courage
Elaine Levine - 2012
. . Rocco Silas has come home to Wyoming after long years as a Red Team operative in Afghanistan. It isn't easy returning to civilian life, especially burdened as he is with a staggering case of PTSD or hunted as he is by an enemy determined to seek an eye-for-eye--neither of which can he battle until he confronts the truth of what happened one fateful day in the high mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush. . . . She alone holds the key to his sanity. Mandy Fielding's dream of opening a therapeutic riding center on her family's ranch is almost within her grasp--until she hires Rocco Silas, a dangerous ex-Spec Ops friend of her brother's. His haunted eyes and passionate touch promise a love she never dared believe possible. Can they confront the truth of his past and build a future together or will the enemy stalking him destroy them both?
Buried Secrets
Emme Rollins - 2010
But Nick is dead, found murdered in their local cemetery, and Dusty simply can’t rest until she finds out who–or what–has killed her brother.Sure the local authorities aren’t being straight with her–or anyone else–about what’s been going on in their little upper Michigan town, Dusty delays going off to college for a semester, defying her father and stepmother and taking a job in the local bar to start doing some digging.Her focus soon fixes on Shane, her brother’s best friend and the town bad boy. The tension and rivalry between Dusty and Shane has always been palpable and sparks fly as the two collide. Dusty finds herself sinking in deeper with Shane and the mystery of what happened to her brother–and a lengthening list of victims–grows even stranger.When everything comes to a head, Dusty focuses on one thing: What happened the night her brother was killed in the cemetery? She’s sure Shane is keeping a secret and she’s determined to find out what it is, one way or another.
Chasing The Dragon
T.K. Leigh - 2015
She's the target. Can he resist falling for her?Mackenzie Delano craves control in every aspect of her life. From her business life. To her social life.To her love life…Until she crosses paths with a mysterious man who seems to break down the walls she spent the past several years erecting.Tyler Burnham has lived the past few years with one rule in mind...Never fall in love.But when he must form an intimate relationship with a sharp-tongued woman in order to obtain the location of a man deemed an enemy of the State, he finds himself straying from that rule.Will Tyler be able push his feelings aside and recover the information he needs?Or will he risk his mission and their lives in order to follow his heart?Chasing the Dragon is the first book of the Deception Duet, a part of the Beautiful Mess series. Pick up this gripping story of secrets, intrigue, and betrayal today.Beautiful Mess Series Recommended Reading Order:1. A Beautiful Mess (Beautiful Mess Trilogy #1)2. A Tragic Wreck (Beautiful Mess Trilogy #2)3. Gorgeous Chaos (Beautiful Mess Trilogy #3)4. Chasing the Dragon (Deception Duet #1)5. Slaying the Dragon (Deception Duet #2)6. Vanished (A Beautiful Mess Series Standalone)7. Heart of Light (A Beautiful Mess Series Standalone)***Author's Note: While it is not necessary to read the Beautiful Mess Trilogy prior to reading the Deception Duet or the Beautiful Mess Series standalones, the above is the recommended reading order for the best reading experience.