Book picks similar to
Life is But a Dream: On the Lake by Cheryl Shireman
contemporary-fiction
ebooks
borrowed-bought-copies
lendable
Stalk Me
Jillian Dodd - 2012
Discover a breathless fairy-tale romance with swoon-worthy characters, suspense, and a glittering celebrity world. Fans of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and reality TV will devour this pulse-pounding, sexy teen drama set against the backdrop of Hollywood and an East Coast boarding school. Keatyn has everything she ever dreamed. Her life is following the script she wrote for the perfect high school experience. She’s popular, goes to the best parties, dates the hottest guy, and sits at the most-coveted lunch table. She’s just not sure she wants it anymore. Because, really, things aren’t all that perfect. Her best friend is threatening to tell everyone her perfect relationship is a scam. Her perfect boyfriend gets drunk at every party they go to. It’s exhausting always trying to look and act perfect. And, deep down, she isn’t sure if she has any true friends. To add to the drama, her movie star mom has a creepy stalker. A hot, older man flirts with her and tells her they should make a movie together. And she’s crushing on an adorable surfer. Dating him would mean committing social suicideSo she writes a new script. One where all the pieces of her life will come together in perfect harmony. But little does she know, there's someone who will do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Deliver Her
Patricia Perry Donovan - 2016
Alex survives; Cass doesn’t. Consumed by grief, Alex starts cutting school and partying, growing increasingly detached. The future she’d planned with her friend is now meaningless to her.Meg Carmody is heartbroken for her daughter, even as she’s desperate to get Alex’s life back on track. The Birches, a boarding school in New Hampshire, promises to do just that, yet Alex refuses to go. But when Meg finds a bag of pills hidden in the house, she makes a fateful call to a transporter whose company specializes in shuttling troubled teens to places like The Birches, under strict supervision. Meg knows Alex will feel betrayed—as will her estranged husband, who knows nothing of Meg’s plans for their daughter.When the transport goes wrong—and Alex goes missing—Meg must face the consequences of her decision and her deception. But the hunt for Alex reveals that Meg is not the only one keeping secrets.
Never Say Spy
Diane Henders - 2011
She’s leaving the city to fulfill her dream of rural tranquillity when she gets carjacked by a man who shouldn’t exist.When RCMP officer John Kane kills her would-be abductor, Aydan thinks her troubles are over. But Kane’s investigation implicates her in an international espionage plot, and criminal charges become the least of her worries when she’s targeted by the very spies Kane suspects her of aiding.Pity her enemies. Because nobody’s tougher than a middle-aged woman who wants her dream back.Contains coarse language, moderate violence, and sexuality. The story can stand alone but will be more enjoyable if read in order.
Jenny Pox
J.L. Bryan - 2010
A lifetime of avoiding any physical contact with others has made her isolated and painfully lonely in her small rural town.Then she meets the one boy she can touch. Jenny feels herself falling for Seth...but if she's going to be with him, Jenny must learn to use the deadly pox inside her to confront his ruthless and manipulative girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all.* * *Not recommended for readers under eighteen.BONUS: Includes an excerpt of Glimpse by Stacey Wallace Benefiel.
The Secret Stealers
Jane Healey - 2021
Everything changes when she’s recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by family friend and legendary WWI hero Major General William Donovan.Donovan has faith in her—and in all his “glorious amateurs” who are becoming Anna’s fast friends: Maggie, Anna’s down-to-earth mentor; Irene, who’s struggling to find support from her husband for her clandestine life; and Julia, a cheerful OSS liaison. But the more Anna learns about the organization’s secret missions, the more she longs to be stationed abroad. Then comes the opportunity: go undercover as a spy in the French Resistance to help steal critical intelligence that could ultimately turn the tide of the war.Dispatched behind enemy lines and in constant danger, Anna is filled with adrenaline, passion, and fear. She’s driven to make a difference—for her country and for herself. Whatever the risk, she’s willing to take it to help liberate France from the shadows of occupation and to free herself from the shadows of her former life.
A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
Andy Abramowitz - 2020
Brothers and sisters. Mothers and daughters. Okay, everybody. Hold on tight.
Davis Winger has it all. A respected engineer who designs roller coasters in theme parks across the country, he is deeply in love with his wife and has a beautiful young daughter and a happy home. Until an accident strikes on one of his rides. Nothing fatal—except to his career. And to his marriage, when a betrayal from his past inadvertently comes to light. In one cosmically bad day, Davis loses it all.His sister, Molly, is at a crossroads herself. She’s coasting through a dire relationship with an incompatible man-child. And she’s a journalist whose deeply personal columns about mothers and daughters are forcing her to confront the truth about her own mother, who abandoned Molly and Davis years ago and disappeared.For these two siblings, it’s just a matter of bracing themselves for one turbulent summer in this redemptive and painfully funny family drama about making the best of the sharp turns in life—those we choose to take and those beyond our control.
All Our Darkest Secrets
Martyn Ford - 2021
But what if that meant making the biggest mistake of all?James Casper is one of the good guys. A DEA agent. A loyal husband. With his sights set on the man at the top of the city’s opioid crisis, James is about to make the biggest bust of his career.Then his beloved wife Rosie does something terrible, and James must choose: report it—or help her. He knows how this works, and he tells himself he’s smart enough to get away with murder. But James’s worst enemy knows what they have done—and he won’t hesitate to use it to manipulate him.James is dragged into a dark and dangerous world. As events spiral and loyalties are tested, he realizes there’s only one way out. And that is to be even more ruthless than the people he’s working for.Whatever happens, no matter how far he falls, at least he’ll still have Rosie.Won’t he?
The Unremembered Girl
Eliza Maxwell - 2017
It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods.Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is.Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken young woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.
Diamonds and Cole
Micheal Maxwell - 2013
In the past, Cole a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine. Now, he’s returned to the paper where he started his career, The Chicago Sentinel. Instead of writing the big stories, he’s doing the work of a rookie reporter. His “big story of the day” is a cat caught in a tree. During its rescue, the cat’s owner takes her Good Samaritan neighbor hostage. Cole witnesses something so disturbing it reawakens the journalist’s desire to write again.Returning to the paper, Cole finds a desperate message asking for help from Ellie, one that got away. The one that has continually haunted his life. Cole drops everything and flies to California. He must find what would make her so desperate, she would call him after so many years. Cole finds her terminally ill, and abandoned by her husband. He discovers while Ellie was heavily medicated, she mistakenly signed a Power of Attorney. Now her estranged daughter Erin’s inheritance, won’t go to her, but her abusive step-father. Cole vows to find the girl and right the situation.The path to keeping his word is blocked at every turn by the husband who abandoned her, his shady real estate deals, violent con men, street thugs and the lure of a fortune in diamonds that unite them. The anger, sorrow, and crippling guilt of twenty years fires Cole's drive to keep a promise, that in the end, will heal and return the soul to the great journalist.Beaten, bloody but determined, Cole Sage conquers greed and hatred with a strength that only love, and a will as hard as diamond, can achieve.
The Sudden Departure of the Frasers
Louise Candlish - 2015
A picture-perfect street with a secret at its heart.When Joe and Christy Davenport step behind the Oxford Blue painted door of their 'for ever' home, they believe their dreams have come true.Yet the boxes aren't even unpacked before a series of events leads Christy to become obsessed with the previous occupant, the glamorous, enigmatic Amber Fraser, whose departure from Lime Park Road is shrouded in mystery.What happened to her? And why are Joe and Christy's attempts at friendship with neighbours met with an unnerving silence?As Christy unravels the shocking truth about the Frasers and the place she now calls home, she discovers that behind the closed doors of even the most desirable postcodes, terrible secrets lurk.
A Splendid Ruin
Megan Chance - 2021
After her mother’s death, penniless May Kimble lives a lonely life until an aunt she didn’t know existed summons her to San Francisco. There she’s welcomed into the wealthy Sullivan family and their social circle.Initially overwhelmed by the opulence of her new life, May soon senses that dark mysteries lurk in the shadows of the Sullivan mansion. Her glamorous cousin often disappears in the night. Her aunt wanders about in a laudanum fog. And a maid keeps hinting that May is in danger. Trapped by betrayal, madness, and murder, May stands to lose everything, including her freedom, at the hands of those she trusts most.Then, on an early April morning, San Francisco comes tumbling down. Out of the smoldering ruins, May embarks on a harrowing road to reclaim what is hers. This tragic twist of fate, along with the help of an intrepid and charismatic journalist, puts vengeance within May’s reach. But will she take it?
Close to Home
Suzanne Ferrell - 2012
I’m Lorna Doone. Yep, spelled just like the cookie and I own the Peaches ‘N Cream Café here in Weston. You might think nothing much happens in a small mid-western town, but as my friend Harriett says, things aren’t always what they appear. Take our girl Emma for example…”Emma Lewis has a lot on her plate. The single mother of two precocious twin boys and an aging mother who is having trouble getting through each day, the last thing Emma needs is a man in her life, especially a doctor. So when the town’s doctor goes on vacation and his handsome nephew takes over, Emma is shocked to not only find him standing in her bedroom, but accusing her of being a neglectful parent.Clint Preston came to Westen for the year to fill in as the town doc while his uncle took a long needed vacation. Clint also needed a sense of peace and calm to try to find his passion for medicine burned out by long shifts in an urban hospital’s ER. Angered to find two boys in his clinic with broken wrists and no accompanying parent, he is determined to confront their mother. The feisty redhead he meets quickly dispels his belief that she’s a neglectful mother, but he can see her situation is more critical than she wishes to face and finds himself volunteering to help care for her sons and the remodeling of her home.As Emma and Clint forge a relationship among the slightly off-beat characters that inhabit Weston a menace from Emma’s past threatens her and her sons. Clint and Emma join forces to prevent the loss of either boy and the love they’ve discovered in each other’s’ arms.
Clarity
Loretta Lost - 2014
She did not expect a traumatic event to devastate her life and force her to drop out of college. Disillusioned by the cruelty of people, Helen retreated from society to live by herself as a reclusive writer in the woods--where no one could ever hurt her again.When a brilliant young doctor shows up on her doorstep, promising her that his new research can give her the ability to see for the first time, Helen stubbornly refuses. She has learned not to trust anyone, and to rely only on herself. But Dr. Liam Larson will not take no for an answer. He makes it his personal mission to rescue Helen from her loneliness, and bring joy into her world once more--the joy she has denied herself for so long.When Helen's demons come racing back into her life, threatening to rip her apart and destroy the strength she has carefully rebuilt, Liam is the only one who might be able to save her. Can he reach the broken girl in time, helping her to heal and see the world in a different light? Or will Helen's grief send her spiraling out of control, lost to him forever?**********This is the first book of a three-part series.**********
This Is Not How It Ends
Rochelle B. Weinstein - 2020
Weinstein comes a moving novel of hearts lost and found, and of one woman torn between two love stories.
When Charlotte and Philip meet, the pair form a deep and instant connection. Soon they’re settled in the Florida Keys with plans to marry. But just as they should be getting closer, Charlotte feels Philip slipping away.Second-guessing their love is something Charlotte never imagined, but with Philip’s excessive absences, she finds herself yearning for more. When she meets Ben, she ignores the pull, but the supportive single dad is there for her in ways she never knew she desired. Soon Charlotte finds herself torn between the love she thought she wanted and the one she knows she needs.As a hurricane passes through Islamorada, stunning revelations challenge Charlotte’s loyalties and upend her life. Forced to reexamine the choices she’s made, and has yet to make, Charlotte embarks on an emotional journey of friendship, love, and sacrifice—knowing that forgiveness is a gift, and the best-laid plans can change in a heartbeat.This Is Not How It Ends is a tender, moving story of heartbreak and healing that asks the question: Which takes more courage—holding on or letting go?
He's Gone
Deb Caletti - 2013
Keller?”The Sunday morning starts like any other, aside from the slight hangover. Dani Keller wakes up on her Seattle houseboat, a headache building behind her eyes from the wine she drank at a party the night before. But on this particular Sunday morning, she’s surprised to see that her husband, Ian, is not home. As the hours pass, Dani fills her day with small things. But still, Ian does not return. Irritation shifts to worry, worry slides almost imperceptibly into panic. And then, like a relentless blackness, the terrible realization hits Dani: He’s gone.As the police work methodically through all the logical explanations—he’s hurt, he’s run off, he’s been killed—Dani searches frantically for a clue as to whether Ian is in fact dead or alive. And, slowly, she unpacks their relationship, holding each moment up to the light: from its intense, adulterous beginning, to the grandeur of their new love, to the difficulties of forever. She examines all the sins she can—and cannot—remember. As the days pass, Dani will plumb the depths of her conscience, turning over and revealing the darkest of her secrets in order to discover the hard truth—about herself, her husband, and their lives together.