Book picks similar to
Elite by Rachel Van Dyken
romance
new-adult
mafia
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Carter Reed
Tijan - 2013
It was the last easy decision she made because she found her roommate being raped by her boyfriend. She had two choices. Call the cops and be killed by his family’s mafia connections or kill him first and hope to survive. There was no choice to her. She killed the bastard first and went to the one person who could protect her. Carter Reed. He’s a weapon for the rivaling mafia family, but he’s also Emma’s secret. Not only was he best friends with her brother, but she’s the reason he became that weapon in the first place.
Very Bad Things
Ilsa Madden-Mills - 2013
And why wouldn't they? Valedictorian of her class and a Texas beauty queen, she's well on her way to Princeton after kissing everyone goodbye at graduation.Until the day she cracks wide open in front of the entire school.Leo Tate is a tattooed bad boy who's sworn to never fall in love, especially with a high school girl.But she keeps showing up at his gym, wearing short skirts and tempting him with her list of bad things.He wants to resist her, but with one touch of her lips, forbidden love has never tasted so sweet.Welcome to Briarwood Academy . . . where sometimes, the best things in life are Very Bad Things.*Mature Content**Author’s note: Each book in the BW series is written as a stand-alone love story following a new couple, but you’ll enjoy reading the other titles and seeing familiar faces return.1: VERY BAD THINGS (Nora and Leo)2: VERY WICKED THINGS (Dovey and Cuba)3. VERY TWISTED THINGS (Violet and Sebastian)
The Peer and the Puppet
B.B. Reid - 2018
Win the race. Collect the cash. It should've been an easy job. Ran out of town with a broken leg and a lawsuit, my mother's latest flame swoops in like a knight in gilded armor. Blackwood Keep is a place I don't belong, and I'm not the only one who knows. To the boy across the hall, my savior's only son, I'm a stray looking for a bone.He's lord of the manor.King of the academy.And number one on my shit list.THE PEERI have no intentions of becoming a happy family with the social climber and her wild daughter. A bottle of Jameson and a cracked skull gets my problem shipped to reform school, but I didn't bank on her returning.Four's out to get even, and she almost had the perfect plan: expose the privileged kid moonlighting as a gangbanger. She's smart, but she'll have to be smarter. Sending her away won't be good enough this time. I'm going to have to tame the little troublemaker. To the girl across the hall, the one without a name, I'm nothing without my silver spoon.She's lady of the trailer park.Queen of the swamps.And my new favorite pastime.The Peer and the Puppet is a standalone romance, however, the series is one story. The plot introduced in Four and Ever's story will continue in the following novels. Content suitable for 18+.
Broken Wings
Jaymin Eve - 2019
There used to be five, but one of them died, leaving a fifth position that I now fill. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want to be part of this billionaire-boys-club. But no one cares about what I want.Sebastian Beckett is the worst of them. Their leader. He draws me in, and strips me of every defense I have. He calls me Butterfly, but it's not a pet name, it's a threat. Beck wants nothing more than to break my wings, pin me to a board and watch me writhe.He wants to see me broken. Body, heart and soul.And what these elite want, they get.Only they've never met Riley Jameson.Let the battle begin.**This dark romance features four sexy, dangerous boys but is NOT a reverse harem.**
Better When He's Bad
Jay Crownover - 2014
. . meet Shane Baxter. Sexy, dark, and dangerous, Bax isn’t just from the wrong side of the tracks, he is the wrong side of the tracks. A criminal, a thug, and a brawler, he’s the master of bad choices, until one such choice landed him in prison for five years. Now Bax is out and looking for answers, and he doesn’t care what he has to do or who he has to hurt to get them. But there’s a new player in the game, and she’s much too innocent, much too soft…and standing directly in his way. Dovie Pryce knows all about living a hard life and the tough choices that come with it. She’s always tried to be good, tried to help others, and tried not to let the darkness pull her down. But the streets are fighting back, things have gone from bad to worse, and the only person who can help her is the scariest, sexiest, most complicated ex-con The Point has ever produced. Bax terrifies her, but it doesn’t take Dovie long to realize that some boys are just better when they’re bad.
Sempre
J.M. Darhower - 2014
DEATH... LOVE... FREEDOM. THIS IS A STORY ABOUT FOREVER. Haven Antonelli and Carmine DeMarco grew up under vastly different circumstances. Haven, a second-generation slave, was isolated in the middle of the desert, her days full of hard work and terrifying abuse. Carmine, born into a wealthy Mafia family, lived a life of privilege and excess. Now, a twist of fate causes their worlds to collide. Entangled in a web of secrets and lies, they learn that while different on the surface, they have more in common than anyone would think. In a world full of chaos, where money and power rule, Haven and Carmine yearn to break free, but a string of events that began before either of them were born threatens to destroy them instead. Murder and betrayal are a way of life, and nothing comes without a price-especially not freedom. But how much will they have to sacrifice? Can they escape their pasts? And, most of all, what does it mean to be free?
Love Me Never
Sara Wolf - 2015
Declare war on him.Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she’s lost eighty-five pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship.All the girls in her new school want one thing—Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack Hunter's never gone out with anyone. Sure, people have seen him downtown with beautiful women, but he's never given high school girls the time of day. Until Isis punches him in the face.Jack’s met his match. Suddenly everything is a game.The goal: Make the other beg for mercy.The game board: East Summit High.The reward: Something neither of them expected.
Beautiful Oblivion
Jamie McGuire - 2014
She has held down a job since before she could drive, and moved into her own apartment after her freshman year of college. Now tending bar at The Red Door, Cami doesn’t have time for much else besides work and classes, until a trip to see her boyfriend is cancelled, leaving her with a first weekend off in almost a year.Trenton Maddox was the king of Eastern State University, dating co-eds before he even graduated high school. His friends wanted to be him, and women wanted to tame him, but after a tragic accident turned his world upside down, Trenton leaves campus to come to grips with the crushing guilt. Eighteen months later, Trenton is living at home with his widower father, and works full-time at a local tattoo parlor to help with the bills. Just when he thinks his life is returning to normal, he notices Cami sitting alone at a table at The Red. As the baby sister of four rowdy brothers, Cami believes she’ll have no problem keeping her new friendship with Trenton Maddox strictly platonic. But when a Maddox boy falls in love, he loves forever—even if she is the only reason their already broken family could fall apart.
All the Lies
Rina Kent - 2020
I'll break. I'll pay for what I’ve done.Problem is, I don’t remember what I’ve done, but I have a clue.There was a fire.A dead girl.And I was there.All The Lies is a dark new adult book that contains dubious situations some readers might find offensive and/or triggering. If you're looking for a hero, you won't find him in Asher Carson. Please don't read if any of that bothers you.All The Lies is part of a duet and is not standalone.
Crow's Row
Julie Hockley - 2011
Just completing her freshman year at Callister University, Emily faces a quiet summer in the city slums, supporting herself by working at the campus library. During one of her jogs through the nearby cemetery while visiting her brother Bill's grave, Emily witnesses a brutal killing-and then she blacks out. When Emily regains consciousness, she realizes she's been kidnapped by a young crime boss and his gang. She is hurled into a secret underworld, wondering why she is still alive and for how long.Held captive in rural Vermont, she tries to make sense of her situation and what it means. While uncovering secrets about her brother and his untimely death, Emily falls in love with her very rich and very dangerous captor, twenty-six year-old Cameron. She understands it's a forbidden love and one that won't allow her to return to her previous life. But love may not be enough to save Emily when no one even knows she is missing.
Into the Deep
Samantha Young - 2013
Live hard. Love deep.Charley Redford was just an ordinary girl until Jake Caplin moved to her small town in Indiana and convinced her she was extraordinary. Almost from day one Jake pulled Charley into the deep and promised he was right there with her. But when a tragic incident darkened Jake’s life he waded out into the shallows and left Charley behind.Almost four years later Charley thinks she’s moved on. That is until she takes a study year abroad in Edinburgh and bumps into none other than Jake Caplin at a party with his new girlfriend. The bad-boy-turned-good attempts to convince Charley to forgive him, and as her best friend starts spending time with Jake’s, Charley calls a truce, only to find herself tumbling back into a friendship with him.As they grow closer, the spark between them flares and begins playing havoc with their lives and relationships. When jealousy and longing rear their destructive heads, Charley and Jake struggle to come to grips with what they mean to one another.And even if they work it out, there is no guarantee Charley will ever trust Jake to lead her back into the deep…
Crash
Nicole Williams - 2012
Right up until she stumbles into Jude Ryder, a guy whose name has become its own verb, and synonymous with trouble. He's got a rap sheet that runs longer than a senior thesis, has had his name sighed, shouted, and cursed by more women than Lucy dares to ask, and lives at the local boys home where disturbed seems to be the status quo for the residents. Lucy had a stable at best, quirky at worst, upbringing. She lives for wearing the satin down on her ballet shoes, has her sights set on Juilliard, and has been careful to keep trouble out of her life. Up until now. Jude's everything she needs to stay away from if she wants to separate her past from her future. Staying away, she's about to find out, is the only thing she's incapable of. For Lucy Larson and Jude Ryder, love's about to become the thing that tears them apart.
The Silver Swan
Amo Jones - 2017
When she begins Riverside Preparatory Academy, the private school her father has swept her into in The Hamptons, she hopes for a fresh start. What she wasn't hoping for was the pack of bad boys who run the school; ten, to be exact. When Madison gains the attention of their leader, Bishop Vincent Hayes, a whole new world that she didn't think existed is exposed to her. A whole world that starts and ends with The Elite Kings Club and these boys, are about to flip her world upside down. Secrets are overflowing and family lies are about to be exposed. Is there more to Madison Montgomery than even she knows?
Paper Princess
Erin Watt - 2016
She’s spent her whole life moving from town to town with her flighty mother, struggling to make ends meet and believing that someday she’ll climb out of the gutter. After her mother’s death, Ella is truly alone. Until Callum Royal appears, plucking Ella out of poverty and tossing her into his posh mansion among his five sons who all hate her. Each Royal boy is more magnetic than the last, but none as captivating as Reed Royal, the boy who is determined to send her back to the slums she came from.Reed doesn’t want her. He says she doesn’t belong with the Royals.He might be right.Wealth. Excess. Deception. It’s like nothing Ella has ever experienced, and if she’s going to survive her time in the Royal palace, she’ll need to learn to issue her own Royal decrees.