Book picks similar to
Haole Wood by Dee DeTarsio
chick-lit
mystery
humor
romance
It All Started with a Lima Bean
Kimi Flores - 2013
It must be gifted freely.Abby Sullivan cherishes the life she is creating for herself in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. She adores her best friend and supportive family. Her job as a kindergarten teacher offers her life hope and purpose. She is very talented at many things, especially hiding the pain of her past. That is until her world collides with Caleb Hunter’s, giving them both a lesson in forgiveness and love.A life changing love is cruelly snatched by sickness and death. A person must be willing to give love, the greatest gift of all, to receive love.A successful writer, Caleb is living life day-to-day. Giving refuge to his sad and lonely heart since his wife's sudden death from cervical cancer, his primary focus becomes honoring her memory by rearing their five-year-old daughter, Madison. Yet, when Madison Hunter walks into Miss Abby’s kindergarten class, everything changes for all three of them.With a little nudge from a loving mother-in-law who has everyone’s best interest at heart, anything is possible, especially when forgiveness and love gift even more blessings than ever imaginable.**This is book 1 in the Intertwined Hearts series. Each book in the series follows a different couple and they can each be read as stand alones**
Resisting the Bad Boy
Violet Duke - 2013
His brother's best friend. And the valium for his soul he had no business wanting.To be fair, she did ask him for advice--on what she could do to stop being 'the nice girl' for a little bit. All he did was answer truthfully:"Try something new that excites you."...Preferably him.NOTE TO READERS: This is Book #1 in a three-part 600-pg SERIAL (also available as a bundled box set). Each book in the trilogy has a separate story arc in the greater love triangle, and need to be read in order. Book #4 (the other brother's happily ever after) is a standalone novel that can be read on its own.
The Opposite of Wild
Kylie Gilmore - 2014
Not that he’s into her. Because a woman like that comes with way too many expectations. Not to mention, she practically works for him, and he didn’t hire Liz to watch after his beloved Harley-stealing Gran so he could turn Liz loose in his bed. Still, there’s something about her, a hidden wild side, that makes him wonder what it would take. Liz must be crazy to work for the insensitive, arrogant, horribly… hot man she's avoided for years. Unfortunately, she needs the money and Ryan's grandmother needs a keeper. (Midnight tango lessons and ziplines with Gran, anyone?) Ryan's rare smile and swaggering confidence have Liz torn between throwing her favorite pinot grigio at his head or throwing herself at him. Can this control freak find a way to let loose with the tough, no-strings guy who once broke her heart?
Reckless Nights in Rome
C.C. MacKenzie - 2012
THE ONE! Though the name of her celebration and wedding cake business is up in lights, Bronte Ludlow doesn't care for the trappings of success. All that matters to her is her company, her independence and her heritage,The Dower House. Home to her ancestors since the seventeenth century, no way will she part with it to ‘a man with too much money and no soul’. Nico Ferranti’s only passions are money and power... He's a man who stopped believing in romance long ago and Bronte's a romantic, yet the attraction sparking between them like fireworks over the Piazza del Popolo stuns Nico. When Bronte's brother is badly hurt in a car accident in Rome, Nico whisks Bronte to the Eternal City. He wants her and he wants The Dower House and Nico Ferranti always gets what he wants. But Bronte’s heart has already been broken by one ruthless charmer and although tempted she isn’t about to give up either her heart or her home to the charismatic Italian without a fight!
Hot Property
Susanne O'Leary - 2013
But the house is a wreck that requires a fortune to restore, and she decides to sell it. An easy choice, were it not for the discovery of an old family scandal and a budding love affair with both the beautiful landscape and a handsome Kerryman. Catapulted into country life and faced with the less romantic side of farming, she also has to deal with a conspiracy to make her leave.
The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
Trisha Ashley - 2017
Adopted but then later rejected again by a horrid step-mother, Alice struggles to find a place where she belongs. Only baking – the scent of cinnamon and citrus and the feel of butter and flour between her fingers – brings a comforting sense of home. So it seems natural that when she finally decides to return to Haworth, Alice turns to baking again, taking over a run-down little teashop and working to set up an afternoon tea emporium. Luckily she soon makes friends, including a Grecian god-like neighbour, who help her both set up home and try to solve the mystery of who she is. There are one or two last twists in the dark fairytale of Alice’s life to come . . . but can she find her happily ever after?Wonderfully wry, heart-warming and life-affirming, Trisha Ashley's novel is perfect for fans of romantic comedies. And it contains recipes!
Write Me Home
Crystal Walton - 2021
She lives by her plans. Until they lose control of both. Returning to his hometown in the Catskills is the last thing firefighter Ethan DeLuca’s ready for. He’d rather leave memories where they belong—buried under ashes. But if he doesn’t step up to take care of Nonna, who will? Working at the camp down the road seems like the perfect solution. Until his feisty redheaded boss ends up being one fire he has no idea how to put out. Cassidy McAdams is on a mission. Get the camp Grandpa left her ready to sell, turn enough profit to bail Mom’s business out of foreclosure, and hightail it back to her life in New York City. With unexpected complications mounting, she can’t afford any distractions. Especially a ridiculously charming one who’s eager to rescue her at every turn. It’d be easier on them both to hide behind professional boundaries. But when unexplained attacks on the camp ignite a connection between them they can’t ignore, running away is no longer an option.
Marriage by Mistake
Alyssa Kress - 2011
She knows the cold and puritanical man who claims to be her husband is not the man she'd married. But she suspects the warm and tender man she does love is buried somewhere deep inside. And she's determined to find him...
Coffee and Cockpits
Jade Hart - 2013
By night, she’s an award winning salsa dancer who wears sexy corsets and garter belts. She wants to keep her two lives separate, but Liam Mikin knows her secrets. Liam Mikin is a co-pilot used to getting any air-hostess he wants with one blazing look of his blue eyes. And he wants Nina. But Nina is adamant she won’t end up as another notch on a pilot’s wingtip.However, fate intervenes when their airplane malfunctions on a routine flight to Samoa, stranding all the crew on the Pacific island. Liam has his opportunity to prove to Nina he’s not what she thinks, but he wasn’t counting on competition in the form of an engineer. Nikolai Rivers dances as well as Nina and is linked to Liam’s past. As Nikolai fights for Nina’s affections, Liam is forced to face what happened all those years ago. Being island-wrecked in a five star hotel is anything but relaxing. Fraught with male egos, dancing, and secrets, both Nina and Liam aren’t ready for what fate has in store.
Dangerous Passage
Lisa Harris - 2013
Suspecting a serial killer, Avery joins forces with medical examiner Jackson Bryant to solve the crimes and prevent another murder. But it doesn't take long for them to realize that there is much more to the case than meets the eye. As they venture deep into a sinister world of human trafficking, Avery and Jackson are taken to the very edge of their abilities--and their hearts.Dangerous Passage exposes a fully-realized and frightening world where every layer peeled back reveals more challenges ahead. Romantic suspense fans will be hooked from the start by Lisa Harris's first installment of the new Southern Crimes series.
Delivered with Love
Sherry Kyle - 2011
Claire James, age twenty-three, is ready to make it on her own. When she's fired from her job as a waitress and subsequently kicked out of her sister's home, she sees it as an opportunity to start over. But even before moving, a thirty-five-year-old love letter written to her mother keeps Claire stuck in the past. Michael Thompson, a middle-aged real estate agent, wants to keep the past where it belongs--at least until his grown daughter is married. But, then a young woman comes to town . . .
Intimate Enemies
Joan Swan - 2012
Searching for closure, Cassie returns to her childhood home on the Pacific Coast of Baja, Mexico, where she launches her own investigation into the accident. She never expected to find an adversary in the man who had once touched her heart with kindness in her darkest moment.Rio’s been fantasizing about reconnecting with Cassie for months. But not here and sure as hell not now. As an undercover agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he’s working the biggest sting operation in all of northern Mexico, and he definitely doesn’t have time for the wild attraction he feels for Cassie.Not only is his cover on the line, so is his heart. Because as the end of a yearlong operation draws closer, Rio knows if he tells Cassie the truth about who and what he is, it won’t only jeopardize his mission, it may result in him losing her forever. And if he doesn’t, his lies and deception could get them both killed.Note: Also appears in the 2013 anthology Dark Nights Dangerous Men
Castle Cay
Lee Hanson - 2010
Who could have killed rising artist Marc Solomon, and what does Castle Cay, the Solomon's mysterious Caribbean island, have to do with it? Before long, Julie's sixth-sense pulls a hidden string that unravels a deadly conspiracy...and her own troubled past.
An Affair to Dismember
Elise Sax - 2013
That’s why Gladie is more than a little skeptical when her Grandma Zelda — who is more than a little psychic — recruits her into the family’s matchmaking business in the quaint small town of Cannes, California. What’s more, Gladie is also highly unqualified, having a terrible track record with romance. Still, Zelda is convinced that her granddaughter has her clairvoyant “gift.” But when the going gets tough, Gladie wonders if this gift has a return policy. When Zelda’s neighbor drops dead in his kitchen, Gladie is swept into his bizarre family’s drama. Despite warnings from the (distractingly gorgeous) chief of police to steer clear of his investigation, Gladie is out to prove that her neighbor’s death was murder. It’s not too long before she’s in way over her head — with the hunky police chief, a dysfunctional family full of possible killers, and yet another mysterious and handsome man, whose attentions she’s unable to ignore. Gladie is clearly being pursued — either by true love or by a murderer. Who will catch her first?
Issued to the Bride: One Navy SEAL
Cora Seton - 2016
Navy SEAL Brian Lake is out of luck. Going rogue on his last mission landed him on a fast track out of the Navy — years too soon to have saved up enough money to buy the ranch he’s always wanted. Without a career — or the cash to start over — Brian’s options are few, until Army general Augustus Reed steps in with an intriguing new mission — a permanent one. Ignored by her absentee father, duped by the thief he appointed to oversee her family’s ranch, Cass Reed is done with men for good. From now on she’s determined to run Two Willows herself, so when her father sends a Navy SEAL to fix up her house, she vows to run him off her land as soon as possible. But Brian’s just as determined to stay, and he’s in a far different league than the men she’s met before. Brian’s ready to do anything that will earn him a share of a prosperous ranch — even take a chance on marrying the General’s daughter. And he soon realizes it won’t be a hardship to marry Cass. She’s everything he’s ever dreamed of in a woman — and Two Willows is everything he wanted in a ranch. But he’s not the only one who wants Two Willows — and Cass. Will falling in love be the most dangerous mission of all?