Book picks similar to
Ten Thousand Points of Light by Michelle Warren


romance
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contemporary-romance

The Flatshare


Beth O'Leary - 2019
    Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…

Dear Love, I Hate You


Eliah Greenwood - 2021
    And he definitely wasn’t supposed to answer it. We end up talking through letters and sticky notes in a book. One sticky note. Two sticky notes. Ten sticky notes. All baring our darkest, deepest secrets. It’s all fun and games until I find out who my pen pal is... Xavier Emery. King of my basketball-obsessed town, my childhood bully, and the guy I am in grave danger of falling in love with. But the rules were clear: we can never know who we’re talking to, and the confessions can never, ever get out. Seriously. It would destroy lives.  Fine by me. Even if Mr. Popular does find out his confidant is little old me, it’s not like he’d ever love me back…Right?

Fighting Absolution


Kate McCarthy - 2019
    Until she does.Bear is the boy behind the fence, the one who was there for her when no one else was. Until he's not.Left with nothing, Jamie joins the army hoping it will give her purpose. The last thing she expects is the best friend from her past to reappear in the dusty plains of a war-torn country. No longer the boy she once knew, Bear is now a man: big, bearded, and SAS—one of the army’s elite.Soon Jamie finds herself not only fighting against her enemies, but her feelings for a man who left her once before. Can she risk losing him all over again?Fighting Absolution is a 130k friends to lovers romance. It features characters from Fighting Redemption, but is written as a standalone.

The Butterfly Project


Emma Scott - 2017
    She channels her pain into her art: a dystopian graphic novel where vigilantes travel back in time to stop heinous crimes—like child abduction—before they happen. Zelda pitches her graphic novel to several big-time comic book publishers in New York City, only to have her hopes crash and burn. Circumstances leave her stranded in an unfamiliar city, and in an embarrassing moment of weakness, she meets a guarded young man with a past he’d do anything to change...Beckett Copeland spent two years in prison for armed robbery, and is now struggling to keep his head above water. A bike messenger by day, he speeds around New York City, riding fast and hard but going nowhere, his criminal record holding him back almost as much as the guilt of his crime. Zelda and Beckett form a grudging alliance of survival, and in between their stubborn clash of wills, they slowly begin to provide each other with the warmth of forgiveness, healing, and maybe even love. But when Zelda and Beckett come face to face with their pasts, they must choose to hold on to the guilt and regret that bind them, or let go and open their hearts for a shot at happiness. The Butterfly Project is a novel that reveals the power of forgiveness, and how even the smallest decisions of the heart can—like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings—create currents that strengthen into gale winds, altering the course of a life forever. #standalone #triggerwarning for sibling loss/child loss

Just One Year


Penelope Ward - 2020
    On the first day of orientation, I had an altercation with an infuriating British dude in a campus bathroom. (The ladies’ room was out of order. So, I used the men’s room. Don’t judge.)I got home later that night and realized that the foreign student we were expecting to rent a room in my parents’ house was allergic to our cat.So, the spare room went to someone else: Caleb—the British guy from the men’s room. And so it began…my love-hate story with Caleb Yates. Or was it hate-love in that order?The guy knew how to push every one of my buttons. Sometimes I’d email him to express my aggravation and disdain.He’d actually rewrite my own words and send them back to me. That was the type of infuriating person Caleb was.So frustrating.And…Sometimes incredibly funny and endearingly sweet.And hot. He eventually grew on me, and Caleb soon became one of my best friends that year. Too bad he was headed back to England soon, so nothing could happen between us—for so many reasons. I definitely couldn't fall in love with him, especially since all we had was just one year.

God-Shaped Hole


Tiffanie DeBartolo - 2002
    Everyone said she was a fraud, that she was just making it up. I'd really like to know why the hell a person would make up a thing like that.Written with the snap, glitter and wit of The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, God-Shaped Hole is a memorable, poignant love story that will leave you weeping with laughter. It is told in the wry, vulnerable voice of Beatrice "Trixie" Jordan who replies to a personal ad, "If your intentions are pure I am seeking a friend for the end of the world."In doing so, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent thirty-something writer, a free spirit who is a passionate seeker of life. He possesses his own turn of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision as they roller coaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance. Along the way they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.This story will prove so touching you will rush to share it with a friend or loved one or even a stranger.

Dear Enemy


Kristen Callihan - 2020
    Macon Saint was beautiful, but despite his name, Delilah knew he was the devil. That he dated her slightly evil sister, Samantha, was no picnic either. When they broke up, it was a dream come true: Delilah never had to see him again.Ten years later, her old enemy sends a text.Delilah’s sister has stolen a valuable heirloom from Macon, now a rising Hollywood star, and he intends to collect his due. One problem: Sam has skipped town.Sparks still sizzle between Macon and Delilah, only this heat feels alarmingly like unwanted attraction. But Delilah is desperate to keep her weak-hearted mother from learning of her sister’s theft. So she proposes a deal: she’ll pay off the debt by being Macon’s personal chef and assistant.It’s a recipe for disaster, but Macon can’t stop himself from accepting. Even though Delilah clearly hates him, there’s something about her that feels like home. Besides, they’re no longer kids, and what once was a bitter rivalry has the potential to be something sweeter. Something like forever.

The Friend Zone


Abby Jimenez - 2019
    She's also keeping a big secret: facing a medically necessary procedure that will make it impossible for her to have children. Planning her best friend's wedding is bittersweet for Kristen—especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He's funny, sexy, never offended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Stuntman Mike, adores him. The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he'd be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it's harder and harder to keep him at arm's length. The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass.

Alone With You in the Ether


Olivie Blake - 2020
    Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. After their meeting, those things do not change. Everything else, however, is slightly different. Both obsessive, eccentric personalities, Aldo Damiani and Charlotte Regan struggle to be without each other from the moment they meet. The truth—that he is a clinically depressed, anti-social theoretician and she is a manipulative liar with a history of self-sabotage—means the deeper they fall in love, the more troubling their reliance on each other becomes. An intimate study of time and space, ALONE WITH YOU IN THE ETHER is a fantasy writer's magicless glimpse into the nature of love, what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you're not broken

My Life in Shambles


Karina Halle - 2019
     When Valerie Stephens made the resolution to say yes to new adventures, she never thought she’d end up in the tiny town of Shambles, fake engaged to one of Ireland’s top rugby players. But there’s a first time for everything. They say bad things happen in threes. After my boyfriend broke off our engagement, I lost my apartment, and was laid off from my job, I can definitely attest to that. They also say life is what happens when you say yes to new adventures. So when my two sisters invited me to ring in the new year in Ireland, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and go for it. I was going to let “saying yes” be my new resolution. Little did I know I’d spend New Year’s Eve having a hot and dirty one-night stand with Padraig McCarthy, one hell of a sexy Irishman. I also didn’t know that the brooding and intense sex god was one of Ireland’s top rugby players. A rugby player with a proposition for me: Come with him to his tiny hometown of Shambles and pretend to be his fiancé for a few days, just so that his ailing father can have some peace of mind. It sounded simple enough. It was anything but. Not when a town gets up in your business, not when the media hunts you down, not when your past comes back in the picture, not when there are real hearts and feelings at stake. Not when there are secrets that could break you. They say life is what happens when you say yes to new adventures. This is my life in Shambles.

Misconduct


Penelope Douglas - 2015
    What brought her to this stage in her life isn’t important. She can’t let it be. But now one parent-teacher meeting may be her undoing…Meeting Tyler Marek for the first time makes it easy for Easton to see why his son is having trouble in school. The man knows how to manage businesses and wealth, not a teenage boy. Or a young teacher, for that matter, though he tries to. And yet…there is something about him that draws Easton in—a hint of vulnerability, a flash of attraction, a spark that might burn.Wanting him is taboo. Needing him is undeniable. And his long-awaited touch will weaken Easton’s resolve—and reveal what should stay hidden…(*STANDALONE, NO CLIFFHANGER*)

My Dark Vanessa


Kate Elizabeth Russell - 2020
    Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

Method


Kate Stewart - 2019
    I married an A-list player, knowing I come second place to his craft. But Lucas and I are a golden couple, a modern-day fairy tale.I’ve never doubted what we built...until the sudden death of Lucas’s best friend has scandal rocking the Hills and shaking the foundation of our relationship.I chose Lucas as my safe haven...he chose the role of a lifetime.For the next three months, I’ll share my nights with a stranger, watching as he buries his pain, immersed in his role and living as someone else.We’ve done this before. I tell myself it’s just another movie, and he’ll return to me.I should’ve known this time would be different.To get my husband back, I’ll need the strength of ten men.As it turns out, I’ll have to go through two.

Every Wrong Reason


Rachel Higginson - 2015
    She thought she had her happily ever after. But seven years into Kate’s marriage, she realizes that her husband Nick is not what she wanted. He’s selfish, he’s oblivious and he doesn’t love her anymore.Maybe she doesn’t love him anymore either.Divorce is the only option if either of them wants to find happiness.Kate and Nick thought they knew what they wanted, but neither is prepared for the heartache that separating will bring them. The journey they embark on is not the freedom they wished for, but a painful look at the people they’ve become.At the end of it, Kate has to decide if this is really the life she wants or if maybe there’s a way to salvage her broken heart.

Crazy Good


Rachel Robinson - 2014
    They put the bad in badass because, well… it’s their job.Navy SEAL Maverick Hart has everything. Women want him. Grown men idolize him. Little boys want to grow up and be like him. The job, the glory — it’s all his. Not because it’s handed to him… because he works hard for it. The second his sights lock on something, he owns it — or destroys it. Unfortunately he does both at the same time. Windsor Forbes only takes calculated risks in her profession and in her personal life. After being left at the altar by the only person she’s ever loved, the very last thing she’s looking for is a relationship — especially the insane brand an arrogant Navy SEAL is offering. Hesitant, yet trusting to a fault, she gives in. She knew she shouldn’t take the chance, especially a second time, but love is irrational and their love is perfect, infallible. Or so she thought…The downfall to having everything is you have that much more to lose. A man like Maverick can’t have it all without something slipping out of grasp. Crazy people perish for love. Good people live for it. Love doesn’t die. No matter how many bullets you put in it. *Due to sexual content and graphic language this book is intended for readers 18+.*