Book picks similar to
Pretty Little Thing by L.K. Farlow
single-parent
contemporary
arc
forced-proximity
Twisted Love
Ana Huang - 2021
Alex Volkov is a devil blessed with the face of an angel and cursed with a past he can’t escape. Driven by a tragedy that has haunted him for most of his life, his ruthless pursuits for success and vengeance leave little room for matters of the heart. But when he’s forced to look after his best friend’s sister, he starts to feel something in his chest:A crack.A melt.A fire that could end his world as he knew it.***Ava Chen is a free spirit trapped by nightmares of a childhood she can’t remember.But despite her broken past, she’s never stopped seeing the beauty in the world…including the heart beneath the icy exterior of a man she shouldn’t want. Her brother’s best friend. Her neighbor.Her savior and her downfall.Theirs is a love that was never supposed to happen—but when it does, it unleashes secrets that could destroy them both…and everything they hold dear.
Twisted Love is a brother’s best friend/opposites attract romance with a hint of suspense. It's book one in the Twisted series but can be read as a standalone.WARNING: This book contains a possessive, morally gray alphahole; explicit sexual content, and profanity. No cheating or menage, but if you're looking for a traditionally sweet, loveable hero, this is not the book for you. Recommended for 18+.
Second Chance Contract
M. Robinson - 2021
Robinson comes a best friend’s baby sister, second chance billionaire romance.She was my best friends little sister which meant she was off limits, but I couldn’t help myself. I never could when it came to her and in the end, I just left town and made something of my myself.Ten years later and I was one of the richest men in the world. I had everything I ever wanted except for her. Little did I know, life would give me a second chance to make things right by her.She was suddenly my publicist, treating me as if I was nothing more than another client when I stole all her firsts. Including her heart.I needed to take matters into my own hands, making her an offer she couldn’t refuse.For the next time days, she signed a contract stating…She was mine.
Travis
Mia Sheridan - 2021
An important role as the chief of police in the idyllic town of Pelion, Maine. Looks that regularly and consistently make women fall at his feet. Two nephews and a niece he adores, and a family who’s mostly forgiven him after a series of unfortunate decisions years before. Perhaps his past is riddled with regrets and misguided choices, but his future looks bright and limitless.Until the new guy in town crosses him in a way both shocking and indefensible.A guy who, as it turns out, has a sister who may be equally as disastrous to Travis’s well-ordered plans, though in an altogether different manner. Not that there’s any real risk of him falling for the smoothie-making, birdseed-eating wild woman. She’s not even his type. A plant lady from California with a head of unruly curls and an equally messy past. More than that, she’s only in town for the summer, busy mooning over perfect-in-every-way Gage Buchanan.And if Travis knows anything, it’s that he refuses to be second best. Ever again.Haven Torres’s life fell apart. Or more to the point, it burned to the ground. At the time, it seemed like a solid idea to jump in her car, her brother a mostly-willing co-pilot, and embark on a cross-country adventure.When they land jobs at an exclusive tennis and golf club in a picturesque lake town in Maine, Haven’s hopeful it might prove a summer to remember. Especially if she can catch the attention of the most eligible bachelor in town and her current crush. Even the kindest, most upstanding, perfect of men aren’t opposed to summer flings, right?But when she meets the local police chief—all swagger and arrogance—and learns of her brother’s scandalous misdeed, she knows that Pelion is just another town where their stay is best... short-lived. Still, she and Travis strike up an unlikely friendship and Haven sees that the gorgeous lawman isn’t only easy on the eyes, but he has... layers. Not that she’s going to peel any of them. He’s only her friend. A friend willing to scratch her back, if she scratches his.It seems simple enough. She’ll help him make her brother sweat a little. And he’ll help her win over Gage. But before either Travis or Haven knows it, simple turns complicated, friendship gets flipped on its ear, passion faces down perfection, and they both discover that sometimes you have to lose it all to find exactly what you need.
The Wreckage of Us
Brittainy C. Cherry - 2020
I know I should stay away from Ian Parker. But when my drug-dealing stepdad kicks me out, I have nowhere to go. Squatting in an abandoned shed on Ian’s grandpa’s farm seems like as good a plan as any. Ian finds me there, of course, and he insists on me moving into his spare room. I should say no, but the appeal of a roof and a warm bed is too much. Not to mention Ian’s brown eyes and strong arms. We’re nothing alike, but the spark between us is undeniable. My life is finally looking up. Until I call the cops on my stepdad and unintentionally get my pregnant mom arrested. Now I have to sacrifice my dreams to take care of my mom’s baby. She’s the only family I have left. Meanwhile, Ian’s band is taking off; his dreams are coming true. Ian is my one chance at love. I just hope he doesn’t become the one chance that got away.
You Keep Breaking Us
Carrie Aarons - 2022
We were the golden couple of our high school. The king and queen of prom, the sweethearts voted most likely to get married and have babies, and the absolute idiots who decided to attend the same college.Because that’s when it all fell apart. The naïve, puppy love versions of ourselves couldn’t see the obvious cracks we’d had back in our hometown. But they sure revealed themselves when we started living in an off-campus house together with four of our other friends.Within a semester, blow-out fights, jealousy, every-other-week breakups, and my abandonment issues had him bowing out. Not just on me, but on the house, too. Until our senior year, when his parents refuse to keep paying rent on two places.So he moves back in, and I’m forced to live with my ex. The one who has ruined all other men for me. The one I still cry myself to sleep at night thinking about. The one who confesses, during a run-in in a dark hallway, that he hates how much he still loves me.And when he starts dating again, he might as well plunge a knife straight through my heart. Despite our breakup, I’m on the verge of losing him for real this time, and possibly forever. The only option is to seek help for my deep-seated trauma, the thing that Callum always encouraged me to see someone about. The thing that eventually pushed him away.Put two of the most driven, headstrong, and passionate people in any relationship and it’s bound to combust. We’ve always had that twin flame kind of love.So, together we might burn. But we also might heal.
Courage
Kristen Proby - 2021
This is the first story in the Heroes of Big Sky, all about men in uniform in Cunningham Falls!Natasha Mills feels like she’s loved firefighter Sam Waters her entire life. Since she first met him during middle school, she’s harbored a secret crush on her best friend’s big brother. It’s just something she lives with every day—too bad he doesn’t notice her. To Sam, Tash is his little sister’s best friend and that’s it. Disaster strikes the Waters family, leaving Sam’s sister and her husband dead, and their young children in the hands of Sam and Natasha. Suddenly, these two are navigating the loss of people they loved, while trying to figure out parenthood together. The grief is devastating, and raising twins is harder than either of them bargained for. But in working together, and leaning on each other, Sam and Tash learn that family comes in all different shapes and sizes.The more time he spends with Natasha though, the more Sam realizes just how sweet and sexy she really is. He finds himself slowly but surely falling for her. But when the time comes for him to let her go—will he be able to walk away from the family he’s helped build?
Put Me in Detention
Meghan Quinn - 2022
Being single and looking for a wild night, I asked him if he wanted to join me. To my delight, he said yes.Drinks were consumed, fun was had and then . . . one drunken conversation with a cranky gondolier in Las Vegas led to an Uber lift through a drive-thru wedding chapel with the incredibly hot, British bad boy, Pike Greyson.On paper, it seemed like I hit the jackpot. And if I wasn't fresh from a toxic marriage, I would have absolutely noticed the finer things about him.But I wanted nothing to do with being married, so when I arrived back home from my eventful weekend in Vegas, the last thing I expected to see was a new doting husband already moved in.I asked for an annulment, he pulled a Ross Geller and said no.That's right, he said NO! Instead, he asked for three months to prove we could be good together.Insanity clearly knocked him in the head and the only way I could convince him to give up on our sham of a marriage was to show him just how wrong we were for each other. Only problem with that was, he saw right through my every prank, every trick, and every yearning emotion I attempted to mask.
Stripped Bare
Heidi McLaughlin - 2017
. . .In this sinfully sexy Las Vegas romance from bestselling author Heidi McLaughlin, a man who has it all reunites with a woman who takes it all off.Living in Sin City, Finn McCormick is no stranger to one-night stands, but the last person he expects to find losing big on the casino floor is a former high school fling. Even though Macey Webster’s clearly down on her luck, she’s still a knockout, and she’s dressed like a stripper—because she is one. Drunk off an unfamiliar cocktail of lust, pity, and compassion, Finn offers to pay Macey’s debts if she cuddles up to him around town . . . and does whatever he wants between the sheets.Macey came to Vegas for one reason only: money. She’s got a young daughter to support, and the tips really are bigger in Vegas. But when she blows her earnings on blackjack, her guardian angel is the rich boy who once stole her heart and never called her back. Although Macey would love to turn the tables on Finn, she can’t afford to refuse his proposition—and soon she’s enjoying herself much more than she cares to admit. Macey’s used to baring her flesh, but baring her soul will take far more courage.
River Wild
Samantha Towle - 2019
A new identity. Pregnant and alone. And far away from a past that can never find me. River Wild.Moody. Sullen. Jerk.And my new neighbor.I have no interest in befriending River. And he definitely doesn’t want to be befriended by me.Then, he helps me rescue an abandoned dog. And, that day, I see something in his eyes that reflects back in my own. Sadness. Pain. Loneliness.I know all of those things well.An unwanted and unexpected friendship that somehow works. Then, without warning, it turns into something more.River and I both have our secrets, and that’s okay. Because I understand him. And he understands me.For the first time in my life, I have something I never thought I would have—happiness.But happiness isn’t forever. Not for people like me.Especially not when my past is waiting just around the corner, ready to come and take it all away.
Hero
Lauren Rowe - 2018
Or breathe. Or string two coherent thoughts together. And I don’t mean any of that figuratively. I’m not talking about a guy being floored by the sight of a gorgeous woman—although, of course, Lydia is gorgeous beyond words.No, when I first laid eyes on Lydia Decker—my physical therapist—I was lying flat on my back in the ICU, high as a kite on painkillers, breathing on a ventilator, my bones as broken and splintered as my spirit. When I first laid eyes on Lydia Decker, she was a ray of light in the dark. Hope for the hopeless. A salve for my singed and battered soul.She said she’d been assigned to fix me. That she was there to bring me back to life. She said helping me was her calling. And then she touched me. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. She healed me. And I fell in love. But what I didn’t know . . . what I couldn’t possibly know . . . was that Lydia Decker needed fixing far more than I ever did.NOTE: The Morgan Brothers are a series of five interconnected standalones. Recommended reading order is to start with HERO or CAPTAIN, as book 1, despite series numbering, because both books run on same timeline, alongside each other, and their events happen first in chronology. However, if you do not mind skipping around in time a bit, you can start with any of the Morgan Brothers books, despite series numbering, and fully enjoy it!
Tap Left
A. Zavarelli - 2017
She’s soft in too many ways. A people pleaser who goes the extra mile. Some might call her an easy target. In short, she has all of the qualities that I despise. But when it comes to me, she doesn’t hesitate to fling her poison arrows my way. She has every right to her feelings. Over the years, I’ve given her plenty of ammo. Yeah, I hate Lola. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting her too. When she makes me a proposition I can’t refuse, there’s just one problem. She tastes so f*cking sweet. So f*cking good. So f*cking mine. This is a full length standalone.
I Just Want You
Kaylee Ryan - 2017
“Get a good job,” they said. “It will be a piece of cake.” Well, whoever they are, they lied. Sure, college was a blast, but after college, not so much. The finding a job to go with my expensive education, that part was not so easy. At least not until I was offered a position at the new club in town. Life is defined by the little moments that have the power to change it completely. I never thought getting a cup of coffee would change mine, but it did. She did. She’s one of those moments. He’s my boss. She’s my employee. I want him. I can’t resist her.
Rebellious
Kristy Marie - 2021
No cuddling. No blah, blah, blah. He wrote the rules onto our skin—every ink stroke tragically smeared by the lines we’d crossed. He claimed it was the only way we could be together—the only way we wouldn’t destroy our families.But there was an exception to his rules—one he never saw coming.All I needed was opportunity and a sunburn. The girl who played by his rules is gone. This girl… is not his “friend.”
Well Played
Vi Keeland - 2021
The other half now belonged to Levi Miller, the famous quarterback who had other ideas about what we should do with the property.We won’t mention that I accidentally injured him during our first meeting, causing him to get eight stitches.You could say we got off on the wrong foot. We bickered a lot as we both moved into the property while we figured things out. He wanted to unload the rundown place which, admittedly, needed a lot of work. I wanted to restore The Palm Inn to its original beauty and re-open it as a bed and breakfast. We couldn’t agree on anything. So Levi made me a proposal. One he thought I would surely lose. If I could sell out the place by the time he had to leave for training at the end of summer, he would back off and let me run it.But in the weeks that followed, we got more than we bargained for while we were living under the same roof.Levi and I got closer, and before I knew it, my nightly fantasies about the brawny Adonis became a reality. Not to mention, he was so great with my son.We were in over our heads in more ways than one. Because not only was he the last man on Earth I should be falling for because of our deal, but Levi was also my ex’s older brother.And now the inn was the least of my problems.
Rewrite the Stars
Charleigh Rose - 2018
Beautiful and popular, if not a little jaded. A chance encounter with a green-eyed stuntman sets off a chain of events that turns her perfect, little world upside down. Short on options and desperate for adventure, she joins the traveling carnival for the summer. Thrust into a world full of drama, deception, and secrecy, Evangeline tries to find herself and protect her heart in the process. Sebastian McAllister is cursed. He knows better than to think otherwise. He’s content to live out the rest of his life traveling the country as one of the four Sons of Eastlake, seeking thrills the only way he knows how. The one thing he doesn’t see coming is the spoiled blond with stars in her eyes. The only problem is, the more time he spends with her, the more hope starts to stir in his dormant heart. Too bad hope is a dangerous thing when you’re a McAllister