Book picks similar to
Company Ink by Kat Colburn


contemporary
romance
giveaways
first-reads

For the Love of Friends


Sara Goodman Confino - 2021
    To her friends, she’s reliable and selfless, which is how she winds up a bridesmaid in five weddings in six weeks. Anything for her three best friends and two (younger) siblings, right? Even if her own love life is…well, she’d rather not talk about it. To keep her sanity, Lily needs a safe place to vent.And so her anonymous blog, Bridesmania, is born. The posts start pouring out of her: all the feels about mom-zillas, her vanishing bank balance, the wicked bridesmaids of the west, high-strung brides-to-be, body-shaming dress clerks, bachelorette parties, and Spanx for days, not to mention being deemed guardian of eighty-eight-year-old Granny (who enjoys morning mimosas in the nude) for her brother’s destination wedding.So far the blog has stayed anonymous. But as everyone knows, few things online remain secret forever…When all is said and done, can Lily help all five couples make it to happily ever after? And will her own happy ending be close behind?

Talisman Of El


Alecia Stone - 2012
    7 billion.Others ... unknown.When 14-year-old Charlie Blake wakes up sweating and gasping for air in the middle of the night, he knows it is happening again. This time he witnesses a brutal murder. He's afraid to tell anyone. No one would believe him ... because it was a dream. Just like the one he had four years ago - the day before his dad died.Charlie doesn't know why this is happening. He would give anything to have an ordinary life. The problem: he doesn't belong in the world he knows as home.He belongs with the others.

A Rogue Cowboy's Second Chance


Stephanie Rowe - 2021
    Now she needs to trust him with her life. First in a new billionaire cowboy series by New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Rowe.Billionaire rancher Brody Hart protects others…no matter the cost to himself. When the woman he lost a decade ago needs his help, he has a second chance with the sassy country music star he never stopped loving.Tatum Crosby lives for her music, but when a stalker targets her, there’s only one man she trusts to keep her alive. But Brody wants a second chance with her heart, too. Can she trust him with both?When Brody takes Tatum to his ranch to keep her safe, attraction burns hot and bright, while betrayal, passion, and danger close in. Can the loyal, protective cowboy heal the scars on Tatum’s heart before she returns to her life and leaves him behind…again?

Tough Love: A Forced Proximity Romance


Melanie A. Smith - 2021
    Smith comes a standalone steamy contemporary romance about life choices, love, and finding yourself in between. Sometimes you need a bit of tough love to get where you’re supposed to be … Mia Anderson has been living a life that was chosen for her. But her impending thirtieth birthday is the wake-up call she needed to stop wasting time on all the wrong pursuits. Just as she’s figuring out what she wants to do about it, her beloved grandmother falls ill and Mia drops everything to be with her. What she didn’t expect to find in her grandmother’s tiny mountain town is the courage to quit working for her father, supplied by a little tough love from her Gran. Now faced with an uncertain future, the last thing on her mind is finding love. Nate Edwards is living a solitary life deep in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. He’s content, or at least he thinks he is — until the granddaughter of a good friend shows up and he starts having feelings he thought he’d never have again. But Mia’s future isn’t in Alpine Ridge, so acting on it would lead to nothing but heartbreak. Still, their connection is undeniable and circumstances continue to push them together, despite their resistance. Will Mia stick to her decision to carve her own path? And if she does, will it be with Nate? Or is he doomed to an isolated life?

If I Could Turn Back Time


Beth Harbison - 2015
    She made her fortune and now she hob nobs with the very rich and occasionally the semi-famous, and she enjoys luxuries she only dreamed of as a middle-class kid growing up in Potomac, Maryland. But despite it all, she can't ignore the fact that she isn't necessarily happy. In fact, lately Ramie has begun to feel more than a little empty.On a boat with friends off the Florida coast, she tries to fight her feelings of discontent with steel will and hard liquor. No one even notices as she gets up and goes to the diving board and dives off...Suddenly Ramie is waking up, straining to understand a voice calling in the distance...It's her mother: "Wake up! You're going to be late for school again. I'm not writing a note this time..."Ramie finds herself back on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, with a second chance to see the people she's lost and change the choices she regrets. How did she get back here? Has she gone off the deep end? Is she really back in time? Above all, she'll have to answer the question that no one else can: What it is that she really wants from the past, and for her future?

Valentine Veto


Claire Wilder - 2022
    But I didn’t just leave my past behind—I left Callie McIntyre, the good girl I was never good enough for.Now Callie’s mayor of our town, and I’m back too, a European-trained chocolatier with a proposal for a new facility I need her approval on. One that will redeem my family name, and hopefully me, in her eyes.But Callie still hasn’t forgiven me for breaking her heart. And if she vetoes this project, she’ll never know it was all for her.Valentine Veto is a standalone steamy second chance novella, part of the Man of the Month Club multi-author series.

The Unfinished Garden


Barbara Claypole White - 2012
    Since her husband's death, gardening has become her livelihood and her salvation. Hiding out in the North Carolina forest, she wants only to be left alone with Isaac and her greenhouse. New to the area, successful software developer James Nealy needs a garden. On a solitary mission to reclaim his life from irrational obsessions and relentless compulsions, he has a plan: to conquer his greatest fear. Dirt. One glimpse - or two - of Tilly's garden, and he knows she holds the key. But when he asks her to take him on as a client, she refuses. After a family emergency pulls Tilly and Isaac back to her native England, she's quietly happy, because nothing has changed in her childhood village. Or has it? Her first love is unexpectedly single, her mother is scheming, and her best friend is keeping secrets. Then James appears on her doorstep. Tenuous at first, but gradually taking root, James and Tilly forge an unlikely bond. As they work together to rescue a garden choked by neglect, they unearth each other's secrets, each other's fears, each other's hopes - and maybe, a shared second chance.

Blind Trust


Felisha Antonette - 2015
    Valerie Harper has one assignment, one mission. Assassinate her mark and everyone he loves. But what happens when she finds that she loves him too?Her instructions are simple; do not fraternize with your target, observe at a distance, and never engage with the enemy. However, as things take an unexpected turn in Val's world, these simple instructions begin to change. Refusing to be a puppet, Kyle Shultz walks away from his old life and settles into the college routine. But the life of a student is more difficult than he imagined. Making friends and attending parties are as foreign a concept as showing a target mercy. The lines between the state of the job and the affairs of the heart are blurred as Valerie and Kyle’s worlds collide. With a maze of enemies and hit lists to navigate, will these two young adversaries proceed wide-eyed and alone into the fray? Or will they blindly trust the feelings they can no longer ignore?

The Devil's Daughter


Katee Robert - 2017
    Ten years ago, Eden Collins left Clear Springs, Montana, and never once looked back. But when the bodies of murdered young women surface, their corpses violated and marked with tattoos worn by her mother’s followers, Eden, now an FBI agent, can’t turn a blind eye. To catch the killer, she’s going to have to return to the fold.Sheriff Zach Owens isn’t comfortable putting Eden in danger, even if she is an elite agent. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be so attracted to her. As calm and cool as she appears, he knows this can’t be a happy homecoming. Zach wants to protect her—from her mother, the cult, and the evil that lurks behind its locked gates. But Eden is his only key to the tight-lipped group, and she may just be closer to the killer than either one of them suspects…

Quadruplet Babies for my Billionaire Boss


Lia Lee - 2018
     I knew better. My morals were in check. I just didn’t care about the repercussions. A man like me never does. Rena was young. Gorgeous. Tall. Big brown eyes that begged me to take her. And that I did. Over and over. My naughty little secretary. Some would call me sick for screwing a girl practically college-age. But my want for her was too great. She was mine… Whether she knew it or not. ‘They say’ all good things must come to an end. And I needed to end it. Before we got too deep. Before she got attached. But then it happened. The last thing I expected. Rena was pregnant. It got me thinking... Maybe this was my chance to turn things around. Mature the fuck up. Or maybe this was my wake-up call: To cut and run. Because it wasn’t part of the plan. Time to choose…

Never Say Never


Taylor Holloway - 2018
    Never hesitate. Never get emotionally involved.Words I've lived by. Until her.I'm a fixer.I fix bad, embarrassing, illegal problems, for the right price.My clients are rich, famous, powerful, and very dangerous.Now I’ve got a problem of my very own: Eva Martin. She just happens to be both my best friend’s little sister, and at the center of the most explosive problem I’ve ever faced. As the body count rises around us, I’m falling for the one woman that’s totally out of bounds. Her wide innocent eyes, perfect curves, and sexy, smoky voice—she’s a liability and a weakness, but I'm unable to resist.Eva’s a risky distraction for a man like me. I'm going to make her mine, and I'll use everything in my arsenal to keep her safe.Even if it means everyone else—including me—becomes collateral damage.