Book picks similar to
First and Goal by Kata Čuić


young-adult
romance
sports
contemporary

Frayed


Laura Pavlov - 2021
    Innocent girl next door. Two different worlds. One small town. A million reasons why they should have stayed away from one another.My life was mapped out for me before I even entered the world.Who I'd date, where I’d attend college, what I'd be when I grew up.But there was a time in everyone's life when they'd face a fork in the road.Should I go left, or should I go right?It didn't matter as long as I didn't remain stagnant any longer.Jett Stone opened me up to a whole new world.Reminding me that it was okay to find my own way.I could have roots in Willow Springs and still spread my wings and fly.What I didn't expect was to fall in love with the broody football player.The boy I’d known since kindergarten.The boy who had somehow become my everything.

Remember When


T. Torrest - 2012
    Although, come to think of it, I am from New Jersey, which may serve as explanation enough. We were teenagers then, way back in a time before anyone could even dream he’d turn into the Hollywood commodity that he is today.In case you live under a rock and don't know who Trip Wiley is, just know that these days, he’s the actor found at the top of every casting director’s wish list. He’s incredibly talented and insanely gorgeous, the combination of which has made him very rich, very famous and very desirable.And not just to casting directors, either.I can’t confirm any of the gossip from his early years out in Tinseltown, but based on what I knew of his life before he was famous, I can tell you that the idea of Girls-Throwing-Themselves-At-Trip is not a new concept.I should know. I was one of them.And my life hasn’t been the same since.**Remember When is the first book in an NA romantic comedy trilogy, but there is NO CLIFFHANGER. It is intended for mature teen readers and immature adult ones due to some high school sex scenes, underage drinking, questionable language and 1980s flashbacks.**

After Math


Denise Grover Swank - 2013
    A mathematics major, she goes to her classes, to her job in the tutoring lab, and then hides in the apartment she shares with her friend, Caroline.After junior Tucker Price, Southern University’s star soccer player enters the equation, her carefully plotted life is thrown off its axis. Tucker’s failing his required College Algebra class. With his eligibility is at risk, the university chancellor dangles an expensive piece of computer software for the math department if Scarlett agrees to privately tutor him.Tucker’s bad boy, womanizer reputation makes Scarlett wary of any contact, let alone spending several hours a week in close proximity.But from her first encounter, she realizes Tucker isn’t the person everyone else sees. He carries a mountain of secrets which she suspects hold the reason to his self-destructive behavior. But the deeper she delves into the cause of his pain, the deeper she gets sucked into his chaos. Will Scarlett find the happiness she’s looking for, or will she be caught in Tucker’s aftermath?

Kissing in Cars


Sara Ney - 2014
    Studious and (mostly) sensible, the only thing Molly Wakefield wants to do is get through Senior Year and graduate. Well, that and hit the beach in her spare time. Okay, fine - and go shopping every once in a while for a new dress... (and who could blame her?) And things are going according to plan - until the day she spies Weston McGrath, handsome star athlete and scholar, spying on her in study hall. A tad creepy? Maybe. Thrilling? Absolutely. You see, Weston McGrath happens to be one guy no one can get close to. Despite her best efforts to avoid it (because let's face it - the guy isn't exactly "boyfriend material") Mollly and Weston form a friendship. And more.... Sort of. But it's a friendship that comes with a price - because Weston just cannot seem to stop screwing things up. Or saying all the wrong things. Possibly in that order... And who has time for an 18 year old "fixer-upper" that should know better? Not Molly. Or does she? This is book one and includes chapter one of book two, Ke Kissed Me First. This book is a stand-alone with no cliffhanger. Note: This YA book is intended for 17+ due to the vulgar language used by its male characters (and occasionally the females as well, even though they're too lady like to do it throughout the entire book). Some adult sexual situations that steam up a few car windows. This title is approx. 63,000 words.

Broken and Screwed


Tijan - 2013
    That day changed everything for her. No longer was she the party girl. No longer did she care about being popular and no longer was her family the happy unit she always thought existed. The only person who could help her heal is the same person who loved her brother as much as she did, his best friend. She only hopes to keep her entire heart from breaking when Jesse will move on, and she knows he will. After Ethan died, Jesse excelled at basketball, partying, and girls. He used it all to turn his emotions off, but the irony was that Alex was the only person who could do that for him. She helped him forget, but she was the one person he shouldn't be with because the secrets he knows could shatter everything. They could shatter her.

Lost & Found


Nicole Williams - 2013
    And there’s Rowen Sterling.After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch hands and mucking out horse stalls are the last things in the world Rowen wants to spend her summer doing.Until Jesse Walker saunters into her life wearing a pair of painted-on jeans, a cowboy hat, and a grin that makes something in her chest she’d thought was frozen go boom-boom. Jesse’s like no one else, and certainly nothing like her. He’s the bright and shiny to her dark and jaded.Rowen knows there’s no happily-ever-after for the golden boy and the rebel girl—happily-right-now is a stretch—so she tries to forget and ignore the boy who makes her feel things she’s not sure she’s ready to feel. But the more she pushes him away, the closer he seems to get. The more she convinces herself she doesn’t care, the harder she falls.When her dark secrets refuse to stay locked behind the walls she’s kept up for years, Rowen realizes it’s not just everyone else she needs to be honest with. It’s herself.

Ridge


Bethany Lopez - 2019
    She had a boyfriend she loved, a softball scholarship, and the best roommate a girl could have. When it turned out her man was a lying, cheating ballsack, she may have gone off the rails a bit. Now, it's a new year and Karrie's ready to build herself back up and move on to bigger and better things. Still, a little revenge would go a long way in helping the healing process. He's got a plan for revenge that will suit them both... Ridge is used to being the BMOC. Sergeant of Arms of his frat and the ability to land any chick within snapping distance has made life pretty easy for him. His home life is another story. He and his brothers are in the middle of a battle between his socialite mother and asshole father. Ridge is looking for a stand-in to placate his mother and her matchmaking ways, and he has a feeling he's just met the girl he can perfectly mold. This makeover has nothing to do with love and everything to do with Karrie and Ridge using each other to get what they want. What starts as a ruse soon becomes an attraction they cannot deny. When it's all said and done, they'll both have more to confess than a need for revenge.

Until Friday Night


Abbi Glines - 2015
    But while West may be Big Man on Campus on the outside, on the inside he’s battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer.Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s life fell apart when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. Even the move to Lawton, Alabama, couldn’t draw Maggie back out. So she stayed quiet, keeping her sorrow and her fractured heart hidden away.As West’s pain becomes too much to handle, he knows he needs to talk to someone about his father—so in the dark shadows of a post-game party, he opens up to the one girl who he knows won’t tell anyone else.West expected that talking about his dad would bring some relief, or at least a flood of emotions he couldn’t control. But he never expected the quiet new girl to reply, to reveal a pain even deeper than his own—or for them to form a connection so strong that he couldn’t ever let her go…

The Boys of Summer


C.J. Duggan - 2012
    She wants nothing more than to forget the past haunts of high school and have fun with her best friends before the dreaded Year Twelve begins.To Tess, summer is when everything happens: riding bikes down to the lake, watching the fireworks at the Onslow Show and water bomb fights at the sweltering Sunday markets.How did she let her friends talk her into working?After first-shift disasters, rude, wealthy tourists and a taunting ex-boyfriend, Tess is convinced nothing good can come of working her summer away. However, Tess finds unlikely allies in a group of locals dubbed ‘The Onslow Boys’, who are old enough to drive cars, drink beer and not worry about curfews. Tess’s summer of working expands her world with a series of first times with new friends, forbidden love and heartbreaking chaos.All with the one boy she has never been able to forget.It will be a summer she will always remember.

Whatever Life Throws at You


Julie Cross - 2014
    Now she's living in Missouri (too cold), attending an all-girls school (no boys), and navigating the strange world of professional sports. But Annie has dreams of her own—most of which involve placing first at every track meet…and one starring the Royals' super-hot rookie pitcher.But nineteen-year-old Jason Brody is completely, utterly, and totally off-limits. Besides, her dad would kill them both several times over. Not to mention Brody has something of a past, and his fan club is filled with C-cupped models, not smart-mouthed high school “brats” who can run the pants off every player on the team. Annie has enough on her plate without taking their friendship to the next level. The last thing she should be doing is falling in love.But baseball isn't just a game. It's life. And sometimes, it can break your heart…

The Year We Fell Down


Sarina Bowen - 2014
    The boy she loves has someone else. What now? She expected to start Harkness College as a varsity ice hockey player. But a serious accident means that Corey Callahan will start school in a wheelchair instead. Across the hall, in the other handicapped-accessible dorm room, lives the too-delicious-to-be real Adam Hartley, another would-be hockey star with his leg broken in two places. He's way out of Corey's league. Also, he's taken. Nevertheless, an unlikely alliance blooms between Corey and Hartley in the "gimp ghetto" of McHerrin Hall. Over tequila, perilously balanced dining hall trays, and video games, the two cope with disappointments that nobody else understands. They're just friends, of course, until one night when things fall apart. Or fall together. All Corey knows is that she's falling. Hard. But will Hartley set aside his trophy girl to love someone as broken as Corey? If he won't, she will need to find the courage to make a life for herself at Harkness -- one which does not revolve around the sport she can no longer play, or the brown-eyed boy who's afraid to love her back.

Broken at Love


Lyla Payne - 2013
    A rich kid who’s not used to being disappointed by life, Quinn and his sociopathic half-brother Sebastian create a frat house game intended to treat girls how they see them—as simple game pieces to be manipulated for their pleasure.College sophomore Emilie Swanson knows Quinn’s reputation—after all, he did send one of her sorority sisters into therapy earlier in the semester—but the game and his charm bring them closer together and soon she starts to believe there’s more to Quinn than people think.But what if the more is something darker than a game of toying with emotions and breaking hearts?Quinn and Emilie might be falling for each other, but there are secrets he’s not ready to tell—and lifestyle changes he’s reluctant to make. She willingly stepped on the court, but if Emilie finds out she started out as nothing as a pawn in Quinn and Sebastian’s twisted game, she might never forgive him.To his surprise, Quinn finds that he might finally care about someone more than he cares about himself…even if that means letting Emilie walk away for good.

Connected by the Sea


E.L. Todd - 2014
    Her best friend, Henry, has an invested interest in her, but Sydney never seems to notice. While Henry is the perfect man, she only dates the wrong guys. Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her, broke her heart, and now she’s too shattered to give anyone a chance. Until Coen… A sexy bad boy with a tattoo, he elicits dark desires Sydney hasn’t felt in so long. His intense eyes, the color of the sea, capture her sight, making it impossible to look away. She tries to avoid him, knowing he’s no good for her, but Coen, who always gets what he wants, doesn’t take no for an answer. Will Sydney regret this decision? Or will she find what’s been missing her entire life? The family she lost, the loves she misses, and the trust she never thought she could have for someone else?

Dare to Kiss


S.B. Alexander - 2014
    She’s on top of the world when Arizona State University approaches her to discuss a scholarship. To be the first girl ever to grace a college boys’ team is beyond what she has ever dreamed.Her fastball is impeccable, her curveball equally as good, and her slider annihilates anyone who dares to step in the batter’s box. But fate has its own way of throwing curveballs. When she loses her mother and sister to a home invasion, baseball and her dreams die with them. Tragedy has a way of seeping deep into her psyche, causing nightmares, panic attacks and blackouts. Diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, her psychiatrist recommends a change of scenery and picking up the things that she loved to do, and for Lacey that is baseball.After a move clear across the country, only two things matter to Lacey—overcome her PTSD and make Kensington High’s baseball team. But trying out for the team comes with obstacles—the captain, Aaron Seever, doesn’t want a girl on the team. Her life is further complicated when she meets Kade Maxwell, a tall, sexy and drool-worthy bad boy who has a magical touch that awakens her feminine side and a kiss that slowly erases her nightmares. But getting involved with him may be dangerous when Kade’s archenemy returns to town to settle a vendetta. To complicate matters, her PTSD has taken a turn for the worse. She has to find a way to heal otherwise she may not have a chance at anything in life, especially love.This is a New Adult Novel and contains strong language and sexual content. Intended for audiences age 17+.

Love Notes


Heather Gunter - 2013
    And when you are left to face your demons alone, will you learn that only you have the power to overcome them?Charlie has never had it easy. Between the constant moving and the incessant fat comments and jokes from her father, her self-worth is nonexistent. Her reflection in the mirror shows her nothing but a plain Jane. Music is the only thing that keeps her sanity in check.Charlie catches the eye of the town star quarterback, Maverick. With her curves, her brunette hair, and the voice of an angel, Maverick has never met anyone like her. Everything that is different about Charlie just makes Maverick like her more. Unfortunately, Charlie doesn’t see it herself.Proving it to her may deem harder than he thinks, especially when tragedy strikes and tears them apart.Now standing on her own two feet she may finally learn exactly who she is, what’s she’s capable of and how very un plain Jane she really is.