Book picks similar to
Alaska or Bust by Rhonda James


romance
new-adult
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contemporary-romance

To Have and to Hate


R.S. Grey - 2021
    Walt didn’t crack smiles or pepper in pleasantries as we exchanged hollow vows in front of the judge. His disdain for me was so palpable I assumed we’d walk out of that ceremony and resume our regularly scheduled programming. But then fate was like, Hold my beer. I got this.In desperate need of help and with nowhere else to turn, I had no choice but to ignore a crucial rule in our contract: I shall only contact Mr. Jennings II in case of emergency. But hey, what’s a little fine print between husband and wife?Turns out, Walt’s a stickler for legalese—I think it might be his love language. Oh, and his attitude at the courthouse wasn’t a put-on. My so-called husband is a jerk. He takes what he wants without giving any consideration to other people—specifically ME, his blushing, contractually-obligated bride!I knew life with Walt would be no honeymoon, but a marriage of any sort should still come with a few standard guarantees:To have and to hold.For richer or poorer.In sickness and in health.But after experiencing Walt’s version of wedded bliss, I say let’s forget about all that lovey-dovey crap and just take me straight to death do us part.

Until Harry


L.A. Casey - 2016
    Hard because Harry, her beloved uncle, has died suddenly, but also because of him. Kale.Kale Hunt has been her best friend since childhood. But it was never that simple. He was Lane’s reason for leaving home and moving to New York. Seeing him with someone else, in love with someone else, shouldn’t have hurt. But it did. It really, really did. So she upped sticks and left, started a new life and cut herself off from her past.But now she’s back, and all the feelings are right there. As if she had never left.Emotions are running high for everyone, and tragedy has a funny way of bringing people together. But is Lane reading the signs right? Are they still just friends, or is there something more?

Perfect Love Story


Natasha Madison - 2018
    That the vows you made to each other were simply empty promises.You pick up and move to the country to start fresh. When life hands you limes, you make sure you have tequila because your life is about to get stirred up.JensenMarried to my high school sweetheart, the best thing she gave me was my baby girl. But we weren't enough for her. I wasn't enough for her. The last thing I expected on my birthday was a Dear John letter, but that’s what I got when she upped and left. Now, it's just me and my girl against the world till the new girl moves in next door. Is there such a thing as a perfect love story?

Stay Close


Alexa Riley - 2017
    Forever.If she were to simply whisper my name, I would be at her feet, begging to touch what I shouldn’t, taste what doesn’t belong to me, run my hands along with the sweet innocence she taunts me with.Penelope Justice is eighteen, old enough to graduate high school but—according to her parents—not old enough to live without 24/7 security. The practice has made her an expert at ditching her bodyguards. One look at Ivan and she never wants to run again.I’ve been hired to protect her.I can’t help but think that perhaps someone should have protected her from me.Ivan steals the breath right out of her lungs, something no boy has ever done. Then again, he’s far from a boy. This man, this man who looks like he could kill someone with the flick of a wrist, is everything. He is her future.I can’t let her go and I won’t give her up. I’ve done bad things in my life, and I don’t deserve her. But I can’t do the honorable thing.I’ve never been noble, and I’m not starting now.

Where the Road Takes Me


Jay McLean - 2015
    She’s made a promise to herself: don’t let anyone in, and don’t let anyone love her. She’s learned the hard way what happens if she breaks her rules. So she’s focused on being invisible and waiting until she can set out on the road—her dream of freedom, at least for a little while.Blake Hunter is a basketball star who has it all—everything about him looks perfect to those on the other side of his protective walls. He can’t let anyone see the shattered pieces behind the flawless facade or else all his hopes and dreams will disappear.One dark night throws Chloe and Blake together, changing everything for Blake. For Chloe, nothing changes: she has the road, and she’s focused on it. But when the so-called perfect boy starts to notice the invisible girl, they discover that sometimes with love, no one knows where the road may lead.

Showmance


L.H. Cosway - 2016
    Having won an Oscar at the tender age of thirteen, he had the life many could only dream about. But his success came at a price, and after a short but fruitful film career, he chose to live a life of obscurity on a remote Scottish island. Almost a decade later he’s finally ready to make his return, starting with a lead role in a musical on London’s West End. As a choreographer’s assistant, Rose Taylor has always faded into the background. She watches shows come to life from the side lines, but has never craved the attention of stardom. When rumours begin circulating of Damon’s involvement in her latest gig, she doesn’t predict how she will be thrust into the limelight, nor how the mysterious and strangely introverted man will need her to teach him how to be a star again. Rose knows that show crushes don’t last. Actors fall for each other during the intensity of a production, often losing themselves in their roles. These kinds of affairs burn bright and then they fade. The question is, should Rose let herself shine with Damon, or guard her heart from being broken after the final curtain call?

Unloved


Katy Regnery - 2017
    My name is Cassidy Porter...My father, Paul Isaac Porter, was executed twenty years ago for the brutal murder of twelve innocent girls.Though I was only eight-years-old at the time, I am aware - every day of my life - that I am his child, his only son.To protect the world from the poison in my veins, I live a quiet life, off the grid, away from humanity.I promised myself, and my mother, not to infect innocent lives with the darkness that swirls within me, waiting to make itself known.It's a promise I would have kept...if Brynn Cadogan hadn't stumbled into my life.Now I exist between heaven and hell: falling for a woman who wants to love me, while all along reminding myself that I must remain...Unloved.**NOTE: This book is intended for readers 18+**

The Sweetest Fix


Tessa Bailey - 2021
    With her window of opportunity shrinking fast, a miracle happens. She wins an audition with Bernard Bexley, Broadway’s most respected dance choreographer. When disaster strikes and Reese misses the audition, she has to find another way in front of Bernard, otherwise face the disappointment back home. Following the sage advice of a Times Square Pikachu—Reese seeks out Bernard’s son, prepared to beg for his aid, never expecting mega sparks to fly between her and the gentle giant baker. With Reese’s heart now involved, she refuses to use Leo to her advantage and tries to walk away before her ulterior motives are exposed, but gravity continues to draw them back together…until it’s impossible to stay apart. But Reese’s lie of omission can only stay buried for so long. When Leo finds out how their relationship started, will Reese keep her ultimate role as Leo’s leading lady? Or will the curtain fall on their real-life fairytale?

More Than Words


Mia Sheridan - 2018
    Her prince. They became each other's refuge, a safe and magical place far from their troubled lives. Until the day Callen kissed her--Jessica's first real, dreamy kiss—and then disappeared from her life without a word.Years later, everyone knows who Callen Hayes is. Famous composer. Infamous bad boy. What no one knows is that Callen's music is now locked deep inside, trapped behind his own inner demons. It's only when he withdraws to France to drink his way through the darkness that Callen stumbles into the one person who makes the music return. Jessica. His Jessie. And she still tastes of fresh, sweet innocence . . . even as she sets his blood on fire.But they don't belong in each other's worlds anymore. There are too many mistakes. Too many secrets. Too many lies. All they have is that instinctive longing, that need—and something that looks dangerously like love.No one lays open the heart and soul quite like New York Times bestselling author Mia Sheridan.

Picture Perfect Lie


Marquita Valentine - 2018
    All Knight King wanted was to leave his hometown behind. I never expected to end up in Castle Beach, surrounded by a family who believes that I’m not only their brother’s wife, but the mother of his infant daughter. I can’t tell them the truth—Knight and I met only three days earlier, during a layover in Atlanta. He was headed out to fight in a war that hardly anyone talked about anymore, and I was headed back home to a family who pretended that I didn’t exist. He helped me with my baby. He kept us safe while we slept. We shared lunch and dinner… and I spilled all my secrets to him. Then he gave me an address, along with an offer I couldn’t refuse. *** Six months later he’s back to bury his brother, and my lie is about to be exposed. Only Knight doesn’t say a word. He goes along with the charade, and each day we spend together, pretending to be husband and wife, it’s getting harder and harder not to believe in our lie. Could our picture perfect lie turn into a picture perfect forever? Kings of Castle Beach Series: Picture Perfect Lie Big Talking Man (May 2018) What Lovers Do ( Summer 2018) Dirty Little secrets (Summer/Fall 2018) Hide Your Crazy (Fall 2018)

Irish Kiss


Sienna Blake - 2018
    Long haired, tattooed and tall as an Irish giant. He was more than just handsome, he was drop dead gorgeous. And the only one who ever truly cared. It didn’t matter to him that my father was a criminal and my mother a whore. He saw me, understood me. I could be anything I wanted, he said. Except his. Because I was too young and he was my Juvenile Liaison Officer. Diarmuid It’s been years since I last saw her. No longer a girl, she has a body of a woman. When our eyes met again, I saw the only one who ever broke through my asshole mask. She never judged me. She saw me, accepted me. She could be anything she wanted. Except mine. Cause she’s only seventeen and I’m trying my hardest not to fall for her. If I give in, she will ruin me. This is a slow-burn, angsty love story spanning across a seven-year time period with sexual situations and drug-use involving characters under the age of eighteen. Irish Kiss is a complete standalone novel with a Happily Ever After, but damn, it is going to hurt along the way.

Unsticky


Sarra Manning - 2009
    Stuck in a grind where everyone’s ahead apart from her, she’s partied out, disillusioned, and massively in debt. If she’s dumped by another rock-band wannabe, squashed by anyone else at her cut-throat fashion job, or chased by any more bailiffs, Grace suspects she’ll fall apart …So when older, sexy and above all, wealthy art-dealer Vaughn appears, she’s intrigued against her will. Could she handle being a sugar daddy’s arm candy?Soon Grace is thrown into a world of money and privilege, at Vaughn’s beck and call in return for thousands of pounds in luxurious gifts, priceless clothes—and cash. Where’s the line between acting the trophy girlfriend, and selling yourself for money?And, more importantly: whatever happened to love?

Changing Course


Aly Martinez - 2014
    I was lucky enough to keep her for seven years before a tragic accident stole her from me. She didn’t die, but sometimes I think it would have been easier if she had.I lived in a haze for those four years after the accident. Catering to her every need, even though she hated the very sight of my face. I tried to hold on to her and the future that we were supposed to build together. But you can’t hold on to someone who doesn’t exist anymore.It wasn’t until I met Jesse Addison, a barista at the local coffee shop, that I realized I didn’t just lose Sarah that tragic night, I lost myself as well. Jesse taught me how to let go of the past and learn to love again. But what happens when your past haunts your present, and the woman you used to love refuses to accept the woman you can’t live without?*Intended for readers 18+. Each book in this series can be read as a standalone.*

Bad Liar


Lauren Rowe - 2020
    I wouldn’t trust a word out of the arrogant music mogul’s mouth if his gold-plated tongue were notarized. The Man with the Midas Touch would say anything to get me into his bed, and I know it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want him to succeed.Indeed, the moment I laid eyes on Reed while he was speaking at an on-campus event I’d crashed, my body physically ached to feel his golden fingers—and tongue—all over me. Unfortunately, though, I can’t give into my powerful craving to jump Reed’s cocky bones. Not until I’ve figured out my best strategy with him . . .The truth is Reed has something I desperately want. Something my heart desires even more than my body craves one night of delicious fun with the yummiest man alive. Reed assumes he’s running this game of seduction. He thinks he’s a thirty-four-year-old big cat on the prowl, and I’m nothing but a blushing twenty-one-year old field mouse with stars in my eyes. Yeah . . . no.As Reed is about to find out, he’s not the only cat on the hunt in this game of cat-and-mouse . . . . BAD LIAR is the first book of the standalone REED RIVERS TRILOGY. The full trilogy is BAD LIAR, BEAUTIFUL LIAR, and BELOVED LIAR, to be read in order.

Play On


Samantha Young - 2017
    Nora O’Brien chased a dream from Indiana to Scotland, so sure it was the right thing to do. Three years later she was left in her adopted country with nothing to her name but guilt and regret.Until Aidan Lennox entered her life.Older, worldlier, a music producer and composer, the sexy Scot should never have made sense for Nora. But somehow in each other they found the light they were looking for, the laughter and the passion—the strength to play on despite their past losses.But when life dealt Aidan another unlucky hand, instead of reaching for her he disappeared. The agonizing loss of him inspired something within Nora. It fired her spirit— the anger and hurt pushing her forward to take control and reach for her dreams.Finally pursuing a career on stage while she put herself through college, everything is how Nora wants it. She’s avoiding heartbreak and concentrating on her goals.Sounds easy but it’s not. Because Aidan is back. And for some reason he hates Nora.He’s determined to be at war with her.And she has absolutely no idea why.