Book picks similar to
First Man by Ava Martell


teacher-student
new-adult
romance
contemporary-romance

The Traveling Man


Jane Harvey-Berrick - 2015
    Nice. He was extraordinary. And he wasn’t always nice.Moody and difficult, brilliant and beautiful, Kes scared me and he protected me. He could be incredibly hurtful and incredibly thoughtful. He wasn’t perfect, but he was perfect for me. He challenged me, he took me out of my safe little box and showed me the world could be magnificent. He was everything I wasn’t. Aimee Anderson is ten when the traveling carnival first comes to her nice little town. She doesn’t expect her world to change so completely. But meeting Kestrel Donohue puts her life on a different path.Even though she only sees him for the two weeks of the year when he passes through her home town, his friendship is the most important of her life. As a child’s friendship grows to adult love, the choices become harder, and both Kes and Aimee realize that two weeks a year will never be enough.

The Unloved


Jennifer Snyder - 2012
    Julie Porter learned the hard way that trust is something which must be earned and not something to be given out lightly, those who say they love you are those who hold the power to hurt you most, and best friends can help you survive anything—until they move away.Nick Owen knows a thing or two about a hard life. At a young age Nick learned how to take a hit and to make lemonade out of the lemons life tossed his way. Returning home after nearly two years of being away, all Nick cares about now is protecting his mom from the abusive hands of his father and catching up with his best friend—the girl who lived across the street, the girl he can’t seem to stop thinking about.Finally reunited after two years apart, Nick and Julie are about to learn that age does nothing to protect you from life’s trials and tribulations, heartache and loss, but maybe together they’ll find a way to survive. (Mature Young Adult, contains violence, language, and sexual situations.)

Plastic Hearts


Lisa De Jong - 2013
    I like it that way. I grew up in a fake society where plastic hearts rule. If our hearts are made of plastic, they can never be broken. My parents have expectations and I do everything I can to meet them, even if it means giving up on my own dreams. Now, all I want is to be free to make my own choices.Dane Wright is everything I have been warned to stay away from. We met one night while I was with my perfect, parent-approved boyfriend and I haven’t stopped thinking about him. I don’t want to like him. I am doing everything I can to ignore his pull, but my heart seems to want what it cannot have, what it has never had.Can he measure up? He may think I am too good for him, but maybe he is too good for me. Life is a series of choices and I have never been able to make my own. Until one day, when my heart decides to make a choice for me.Recommended for mature readers due to sexual content and language

The Sea of Tranquility


Katja Millay - 2012
    A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space. Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Embody


S.E. Hall - 2017
    In fact, my family is ideal — funny, supportive and filled with couples that all follow "our" golden rule: Find her. Protect her. Love only her, with everything you are, every day, for the rest of your life. So why is it the mere thought of a monogamous relationship, more than one night with the same woman, sends me bolting in the other direction? Because I hadn't met Bellamy Morgan yet. When I do cross paths with her, everything starts to slowly make sense. Why men change overnight — suddenly blind to all women but her, happy to hold her purse and watch corny movies. Just one problem — she's my little sister's best friend. Embody is a spin-off, STANDALONE novel from the bestselling Evolve Series.

Kissing Tolstoy


Penny Reid - 2014
    A shorter version of this story (28k words) was entitled ‘Nobody Looks Good in Leather Pants’ and was available via Penny Reid’s newsletter over the course of 2017.

The Ivy Lessons


J. Lerman - 2015
    James), The Siren (Tiffany Reisz), or Bared to You (Sylvia Day) you'll love The Ivy Lessons ...Teacher, plus student, equals a passion forbiddenWhen Sophia wins a post-graduate place at Ivy Drama College, she can't believe her luck. The college is owned by one of the most well-respected young actors in London, Marc Blackwell – who not only founded the college, but teaches the students.Known for his strict classes and belief in discipline, Marc has a reputation for being arrogant and aloof, yet Sophia soon finds herself drawn to this cold, fascinating young man. Soon, Sophia is embarking on a journey of sexual discovery that promises to explore all that is forbidden between teacher and student.

A Song for Julia


Charles Sheehan-Miles - 2012
    Six years later, he’s still at odds with his father, a Boston cop, and doesn’t ever speak to his mother. The only relationship that really matters is with his younger brother, but watching out for Sean can be a full-time job. The one thing Crank wants in life is to be left the hell alone to write his music and drive his band to success.Julia Thompson left a secret behind in Beijing that exploded into scandal in Washington, DC, threatening her father's career and dominating her family's life. Now, in her senior year at Harvard, she's haunted by a voice from her past and refuses to ever lose control of her emotions again, especially when it comes to a guy. When Julia and Crank meet at an anti-war protest in Washington in the fall of 2002, the connection between them is so powerful it threatens to tear everything apart.

Coach


Alexa Riley - 2015
    After all I've accomplished, coaching high school football should be easy...but when you've got a distraction in the form of a nerdy girl with curves, things can get complicated.She's a student, she's barely legal, and she's my best friend’s daughter. I didn't know what desire was until Megan. I had no idea obsession could drive someone insane, until I saw her. I wasn't prepared for the fact that once I laid eyes on Megan my life would really begin.I have to have her, no matter what the cost. I have to breed her and bind her to me so tightly she can't ever getaway. She'll be mine, even if I have to take her.Warning: this book is ridiculous, over the top, completely unbelievable, and pretty much just about breeding the heroine. If you're okay with that, welcome to my dirty, dirty book! Just remember, I warned you.

You Should Smile


Renee Leigh - 2015
     Unsure, I squinted my eyes from the sun, used my hand as a shade, and turned toward his voice. “I’m sorry?” “You should smile,” he stated louder. “It’s a beautiful fall day. Summer’s wrath is left behind. So smile.” He stepped out from the shadows and into the sun where I could see him clearly. My lord. I’d heard the phrase ‘sex on a stick’ before, but never knew what it really meant. I did then. A smile slowly crept across my lips. “You’re not supposed to tell women to smile. It can be offensive,” I said, teasing him. “But you are smiling now, aren’t you?” he teased back. “True. Any more advice for me?” I met his eyes. They were deep blue. He nodded his head slowly. “Yes. Ditch that guy and come with me...." Graduate student Shay Elliott gets hit on by a sexy stranger in a gas station parking lot - and the sparks fly immediately. She's there with her boyfriend, though, so she declines the man's invitation to leave with him. She thinks she'll never see him again.... She was wrong. He's just been hired as a professor at her university - and she's about to become his student.

A Pound of Flesh


Sophie Jackson - 2015
    There she meets arrogant Wesley Carter, who’s as handsome as he is dangerous, as mysterious as he is quick-witted, and with a reputation that ensures people will keep their distance.As teacher and student, Kat and Carter are forced to leave their animosities at the door and learn that one should never judge a book by its cover. As Carter’s barriers begin to crumble, Kat realizes there’s much more to her angry student than she thought, leaving them to face a new, perilous obstacle: their undeniable attraction to one another.

The Fall of Troy


Rebecca Sharp - 2019
    Rebecca Sharp comes an enemies-to-lovers epic romance with a forbidden twist...Love is angry. Love is blind. Love is envious and loathful.And I loathed Léo Baudin. My new art professor. My enemy.I didn't move to Rhode Island for this. I came to forget the Troian Milanovic I'd left behind and start fresh where the damage and betrayal couldn't follow.But Professor Baudin wouldn't let me.Cold. Caustic. Captivating. He didn't just push my buttons... He lit them all up with the indifferent smirk of an aristocratic French asshole. But how much I loathed him only made my need for him stronger. To have him would be either victory or loss. There would be no compromise.To have him would be war.So I fought back. But I was Troy, and he was the wooden horse, full of dangerous secrets I never saw coming. I was the one who invited him inside my walls, celebrating without seeing through his disguise. And under the cover of darkness, he laid siege to my body, my mind, and finally, my heart. The first may be a myth, but this time the history books would show that if Troy fell, it was with her all.The Fall of Troy is the first book in the Odyssey Duet.

Flat-Out Love


Jessica Park - 2011
    It's about a journey.Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it. When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that ... well ... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer.Flat-Out Love comes complete with emails, Facebook status updates, and instant messages.

Rule #1: You Can't Date the Coach's Daughter


Anne-Marie Meyer - 2018
    Unfortunately for me, I’m the latter. Even though I’m around hot football players every afternoon, they are not allowed to date me. If they even come close to flirting, my dad, Coach “The Boss” Davis, makes them run laps around the field until they puke. Nothing scares off a boy more than the threat of physical pain. Not only has he forbidden me to date anyone at all, he’s even made me the football team’s water girl so that he can keep tabs on me. Apparently, over protective dad is a fabulous guy deterrent. Outdoor shops should find a way to bottle it and sell it. They’d make a killing. What Dad doesn’t know is that I spend every last second of those two blissful hours of practice in the scorching California heat, staring at Tyson Blake. He is the epitome of perfection in a six-foot-two, incredibly toned, smells-good-even-when-he-sweats, senior body. And when he smiles, angels sing. Literally. And Dad hates him. It feels a bit cliche to say I fell for the one guy that would send Dad’s already high blood pressure over the the top. But it’s true. There’s something about Tyson. Something he’s trying to hide. But I can see through his cocky persona and I know there’s something more.

The Kissing Booth


Beth Reekles - 2012
    Meet Noah Flynn: badass, volatile--and a total player. And also Elle's best friend's older brother... When Elle decides to run a kissing booth for the school's Spring Carnival, she locks lips with Noah and her life is turned upside down. Her head says to keep away, but her heart wants to draw closer--this romance seems far from fairy tale and headed for heartbreak. But will Elle get her happily ever after?