Book picks similar to
Hell and Back by Natasha Madison


romance
contemporary-romance
abuse
dark

Shiver


Suzanne Wright - 2018
    Instead, she has a mother who lives in her head, a stepfather who’s on death row, and the stigma that comes with being the child of an extramarital affair. Writing has always been her escape. Knowing the reception her books receive will be tainted by her personal life, Kensey secretly writes under a penname when she’s not working part-time at her godmother’s bar. Her world might not be exciting, but she likes it exactly as it is. When she meets alarmingly compelling businessman Blake Mercier, the snap of attraction is instant. She doesn’t like it. Doesn’t want to be drawn to this man who is blatantly dangerous, carries dark secrets, and lives life by his own rules. Neither of them make a great first impression on the other, so she’s more than surprised when he begins to pursue her with a single-minded focus that is unsettling, thrilling, and infuriating. Her gut tells her to keep her distance, but Blake won’t let her run. Won’t give her space. There’s another person who won’t give her space. Someone who has discovered the secret of her penname and who seems intent on taunting her. And as Kensey struggles to identify her persecutor, Blake is by her side, determined to keep her safe … because Blake Mercier always holds tight to what’s his. Always.

You Loved Me At My Darkest


Evie Harper - 2014
    Kidnapped by a rich madman, Sasha is sold into slavery, while Lily is forced to join The Collection, a unique bevy of exotic beauties enduring frequent horrors at the hands of elite bidders. However, no amount of pain and suffering will break Lily, who will stop at nothing to save her younger sister. Possibly with help from an unlikely ally.Love is stronger than loyalty…Attempting to prove his allegiance to his employer, Jake is tasked with guarding the unruly and uncontrollable Lily. He can’t afford to help her in her quest to free Sasha—not if he hopes to fulfill his own agenda. But in their dark, gritty, tension-filled world, solace is taken wherever it’s found. Bonds are formed and hearts engage despite Jake’s resistance and both their attempts at self-preservation.When certain secrets come to light, the resulting explosion has breathtakingly bittersweet consequences that, by the end, may not leave everyone whole…or alive.

Jacked


Tina Reber - 2014
    Since that moment, she has made it her life goal to pursue emergency medicine, pouring her heart and soul into assuring another innocent life isn’t lost to the hands of the wicked. We all have secrets we've never shared. Detective Adam Trent has lost control of everything, starting with losing his partner to a punk with a gun and then everything else to the crushing guilt. Now a member of the elite Auto Theft Task Force in Philadelphia, it's his job to be one step ahead of the criminals stealing expensive cars in the city. Too bad the television cameras keep getting in the way of his investigation. We all have pasts that we can never escape. A stolen car, a tragic chase, and a traffic stop crosses the fates of these two, tying them together in ways that are unimaginable. As their love and trust grows, so do the enemies that threaten their survival, testing the strength of their commitment. Can true love endure half-truths, past pains, and secrets never meant to be shared? Some things are just out of our control. Love Unscripted spin-off featuring Kyle Trent's older brother, Adam.

Dark Russian Angel


Odette Stone - 2019
    I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,And I witnessed a crime.The police are failing to protect me.And my chance of survival isn't looking good.Andrusha, is the cold and dangerous leader of the Vancouver Russian mafia,He's also my best chance to make it to trial alive.The only thing we have in common,Is our shared enemy.This man is everything your mom warned you about.He's ruthless.He's cold.And he likes to be in control.I should be afraid of him.I should keep my distance.So why is he the only one who makes me feel safe?Who will protect me from my protector?

The King


Skye Warren - 2017
    My father gambles every night, falling deeper and deeper into debt. When he hits the bottom, he places a new bet: his daughter. I'm his entry bet to the biggest underground poker game. Every kind of danger circles the velvet-covered table, but only one man makes me tremble. A trailer park princess. The son of a criminal king. We don't belong together, but I'm caught in a twisted game. His eyes meet mine with dark promise. And when he puts down his cards, I know I'm going to lose more than my body. I'm going to lose everything.

Sugar Daddy


Sawyer Bennett - 2016
    Sela Halstead lost her innocence in a way that no sixteen-year-old should ever have to endure. She’s spent years trying to forget that night even while wondering about the identities of the monsters who brutalized her—until a telltale tattoo flashes across Sela’s TV screen. The incriminating ink belongs to Jonathon Townsend, the millionaire founder of The Sugar Bowl, a website that matches rich older men with impressionable young women. Obsessed with revenge, Sela infiltrates Townsend’s world, only to come face-to-face with a tantalizing complication: Beckett North, his charismatic business partner. The tech mastermind behind The Sugar Bowl, Beck always gets what he wants, in business and in bed. And yet, for a man who’s done every dirty thing imaginable, there’s something about the naïve, fresh-faced Sela that sparks his hottest fantasies. Because with her, it’s not just about sex. Beck opens up to her in ways he never has with other girls. So why does he get the feeling that she’s hiding something? In a world of pleasure and power, the shocking truth could turn them against each other—or bind them forever. Note: Sugar Daddy ends on a cliffhanger. Sela and Beck’s story continues in Sugar Rush and Sugar Free!

The Spark


Vi Keeland - 2021
    A deep, velvety voice answered, and as luck would have it, he had my suitcase, too.Donovan and I met at a coffee shop to do the exchange. Turned out, it wasn’t just his voice that was sexy. The man holding my luggage was absolutely gorgeous, and we had an immediate spark. He got me to admit that I’d snooped in his bag and then convinced me to make it up to him by letting him buy me coffee. Coffee led to dinner, dinner led to dessert, and dessert led to spending an entire weekend together. Donovan wasn’t just handsome with a panty-dropping voice. He was also funny, smart, and surprisingly down to earth for a man who wore seven-hundred-dollar shoes. Did I mention he also did my laundry while I slept?Definitely too good to be true.So what did I do to repay him for his kindness?I waited until he was in the shower, then ghosted him.My life was too complicated for such a great guy.In the months that passed, I thought about Donovan often. But New York City had eight million people, so what were the chances I’d run into him? Then again, what were the chances I’d run into him a year later…when I’d just started dating his boss?

Little Liar


Willow Winters - 2018
    That’s how stories like these get started. But every lie I told, he saw through it. I think in his heart he knew I was broken; he felt my pain as if it was his. And that’s what changed everything. He’s the reason it all fell apart.Sometimes it’s a single moment that alters everything in existence.Sometimes it’s the fall of dominoes, lined up in a pretty little row and designed so that each one will cause more and more pain.In a single day, it’s all changed, and there’s no way to take it back.I didn't know what would happen. But secrets and lies ruin everything.“I was captivated from the very beginning, and I couldn't let go until the very end. Winters wove an outstanding tale, which has an even better message within its pages.” - Kendra @ Reads and Treats** It's Our Secret was previously titled Little Liar **

Broken


J.L. Drake - 2015
    One day after my twenty-seventh birthday I was grabbed from behind. A cloth sack was quickly pulled over my head, and I was taken from everything I’d ever known. I was beaten, starved, treated like an animal, and forced to live in a room with no windows. With no sense of time and no dignity left I finally gave up hope and made a promise to myself to end it all. Unfortunately, it was going to be a slow process.Then one night an elite group of US Army soldiers came to my rescue. I was brought to a safe house and given two options:One—Stay under their protection and follow their rules or...Two—Leave and be guaranteed to be returned to the savages within a week. I chose option one. As I work with a therapist and begin processing my hellish ordeal things slowly begin to surface. With the help of new friends and a potential new love I fight to get my life back and make choices that will forever alter my future. This is my story…

Play Along


T.L. Swan - 2017
    I realize, to save my life I need to become valuable.My body is my only weapon.Pleasure and pain.28 days is a long time to Play Along with his perverted demands.He thinks I enjoy them.It disgusts me that I secretly do.I hate him.I crave him.When my captor becomes my savior, escape will be my reality.Publishers note....This is a full length, stand alone, romantic suspense. It is not a dark romance.

Carter Reed


Tijan - 2013
    It was the last easy decision she made because she found her roommate being raped by her boyfriend. She had two choices. Call the cops and be killed by his family’s mafia connections or kill him first and hope to survive. There was no choice to her. She killed the bastard first and went to the one person who could protect her. Carter Reed. He’s a weapon for the rivaling mafia family, but he’s also Emma’s secret. Not only was he best friends with her brother, but she’s the reason he became that weapon in the first place.

Darker Than Love


Anna Zaires - 2020
    Both merciless. Both damaged.In his embrace, I find hell and heaven, his cruelly tender touch destroying and uplifting me at once.They say a cat has nine lives, but an assassin has just one.And Yan Ivanov now owns mine.

Pennies


Pepper Winters - 2016
    You'd do best to remember that." Once upon a time, I was an eighteen year old psychology student.Now, I’m a man’s property.Stolen and sold, I’ve been decorated in bruises since the day my world changed two years ago.I suffer in silence, I crave freedom, but I never break.I can’t.Until he arrives.Elder Prest, the only man to look at me and see me. The only man more ruthless than my owner.He wants me for reasons I don’t understand.He claims me for one night then leaves and never looks back.Until he returns.And life becomes much more complicated.

Hot Cop


Laurelin Paige - 2017
    don’t worry, I’m a bit of an expert in that department.There’s nothing ‘thin’ about my blue line, if you catch my drift, and trust me, I know how to put those handcuffs to good use.***Livia Ward wants a baby before she’s thirty.  And even though Officer Chase Kelly is exactly the kind of cocky jerk this librarian has sworn off, he is undeniably hot.  Both of them think they can give each other what they want—a few nights of fun for Officer Kelly, a no-strings baby for Livia—but this hot cop is about to learn that sex, babies, and love don’t always play by the rules.

Riot House


Callie Hart - 2020
    As far as the boys who run America’s most exclusive international academy are concerned, I’m an unwelcome interloper, an inconvenience, and they’re determined to make my life a living hell. When Wren Jacobi sets eyes on Wolf Hall Academy’s newest inductee, all he sees is an easy mark. A reserved little girl with a target painted on her back. He knows nothing of my troubled past, though. Nothing of my mother’s suspicious death, or the horrific treatment I’ve had to endure at the hands of my psychotic father. And he has no idea of the lengths that I, unassuming little Elodie Stillwater, will go to in order to break the savage beast who dreams of breaking me first. There’s a wolf stalking the forests that surround my new school. Little does he know…There are far scarier predators lurking out there in the dark.