Book picks similar to
One Week by Roya Carmen


cheating
romance
arc
love-triangle

Swelter


Nina G. Jones - 2015
    It never feels like the mere passage of time, but a countdown towards something inevitable.Bobby Lightly is selfish, irresponsible, and careless. I haven't seen him since the day I married his brother. He slipped out during the wedding reception without a word.A year later, I heard Bobby was drafted to Korea. He never said goodbye. Never sent a letter. We had all come to terms with the fact that he was probably dead somewhere, either a victim of the war or its aftermath.That is, until in the midst of an unrelenting heatwave, he showed up at the doorstep of the house I lived in with his brother. Everyone thinks I'm cruel. Everyone thinks I should be easy on him. They think I don't understand him. They all think I hate him. But what no one understands is that it was Bobby who broke my heart.And I think he’s back to do it again.

Trailer Park Heart


Rachel Higginson - 2018
    It’s my legacy. That’s how my mama lived. And that’s how her mama lived. It’s the life I was born into and it’s the life I swore I would leave the second I was old enough to make it out. Only legacies have a funny way of sneaking up on you. An innocent decision the night of high school graduation led to a series of complications in my plans to escape. Seven years later, I’ve resigned myself to this small town and the roots I’m tied to. Nothing could make me leave. And nothing could make me spill the secrets that keep me here. Until he walks back into town with a chip on his shoulder and a stupid hunch nobody else in town has been smart enough to follow. Levi Cole is my opposite. Born on the right side of the tracks with family money to spare, he’s the kind of black sheep that can afford to be rebellious—because his family will always pay for his mistakes. He’s also the only living heir to Cole Family Farms, after his brother Logan was killed in duty seven years ago. He sees something in my life that he thinks he has a right to. But he’s wrong. And obnoxious. And he needs to take his stubborn good looks and that intense way he looks at me and go back to wherever it was he came from. I know better than to trust men like him. I was born and raised in a trailer park, I know nothing good happens to girls like me—girls with trailer park lives and trailer park hearts. Especially from gorgeous, kind, pigheaded men like him.

Perfectly Broken


Prescott Lane - 2014
    She has little desire to date or show off her natural beauty, content simply to hang out with her best friends and run her pie shop in New Orleans. But her world turns upside-down when a handsome architect and self-confessed player shows up in her shop and thinks she’s perfect, much more than the usual hook-up. While Peyton does her best to resist his charms, believing she could never be enough for him, she can’t deny the obvious heat between them. With Reed determined to have her, Peyton must decide whether to continue to hide behind her apron and baggy clothes or take a chance and share her scars with Reed, a man with a playboy reputation and scars of his own -- a dark past he can’t possibly share with Peyton, not after learning the horrors she’s endured. But if they can find a way to trust each other, and themselves, they just might be able to heal, to save each other, to live perfectly broken together.

An Unforgivable Love Story


B.L. Berry - 2016
    Love is kind. Love is UNFORGIVABLE. She wanted to forget her past. He wanted to change the course of his future. She was everything he never knew he needed. He became her unexpected. Everything was perfect. Until ...

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)

Ruined


Shelly Pratt - 2013
    It bleeds slowly out of my heart and into my veins. Each word of my secret pulsing through me as it gets closer to the surface. I imagine one day it will get so close to the surface it will spring forth from my lips and reveal the monster I really am.” – Ruined.Bailey Michaels is living a lie. She has a handsome and successful fiancé, a great job and a house in a town she adores. Her friends and family know her as the perfectly crafted individual she has created in their minds. Her deception knows no bounds when it comes to keeping the truth from everyone else. But it’s not enough. She craves the love of the one man she can’t possibly have – the only one who shares her secret.Despite her angst over continuing her forbidden affair, nothing can keep her from Angel.His dark looks, chiseled jaw and broodiness make it impossible for her to ever deny him anything. So when presented with a choice, Bailey knows she finally has to make a decision. Keep living the lie with her fiancé, Carron, or finally be with Angel – the man who’s had her heart since she was fifteen.The funny thing with life though; just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, fate has a way of stepping in and turning the best laid plans to ruins.****"A romance with a twist that you never see coming is an understatement! Shelly Pratt's imagination is astonishing and her story will leave you breathless." - Rhonda Dennis, The Green Bayou Novels."I loved it five star easy." – Kerri Williams, The Justice Moore Trilogy.

Bend


Kivrin Wilson - 2016
    My boyfriend’s best friend. He was never supposed to be anything more—until he was. When my college boyfriend betrayed me and left, breaking my heart, Jay picked a side. He chose me. He stayed, and for the past six years, he’s been my rock, my anchor, my compass…Now we’ve grown up, finished school, and have careers. Me as a nurse practitioner; Jay as a doctor. He’s been everything I needed, but now I want more. I can’t stop thinking about him, and I’m done hiding it.   It’s time to find out if he wants me, too. 
JAY

A friend. Not a lover. That’s who Mia Waters is to me. I’ve tried damn hard to make sure our relationship stays that way. I’m the shoulder she leans on, the last one to talk to her before she goes to sleep at night… And after six years, she means more to me than my own family.The moment I met her, I wanted her. But she belonged to someone else, so I pushed the need down. I didn’t take what I wanted. I’m not that guy. Her happiness meant more.  Until now. Until she asks me a question that shatters our unspoken boundaries. Have you ever thought about having sex with me? Six years of keeping her at arm’s length, and I can feel myself starting to give in and lose control with her.I can’t let it happen. There are reasons I didn’t get close. She hasn’t let go of her ex-boyfriend, not really. And she has no idea about the lies I’ve told her.What if she finds out about me? What if she finds out who I really am?And what will she do when I leave?

Till I Found You


Michelle Fernandez - 2019
    With the overload of work, there’s no time for romance, nor does he want it. His rule—don’t mix business with pleasure. Until one assignment puts that rule to the test. Chloe Channing is not to discover his undercover role as her protective detail from an unknown psychopath. But as their days pass together in tropical paradise, it becomes difficult to keep his desire from compromising everything. Including her safety.All Chloe wants is to remember, but so much of her memory was lost after her assailant left her unconscious. On a summer trip with friends at her family’s estate in the Bahamas, she yearns for the quiet respite from a previous heartbreak and her tortured nightmares. She never expects a man like Julian to help her find emotional peace and physical healing. But as she falls deeper, her flashbacks slowly come together, and they include glimpses of one handsome, mysterious, yet all-too-familiar face: Julian’s.Is Chloe’s mind playing tricks on her again… or has she met this man before?Even if Julian could let go and risk it all, could he ever forgive himself enough to fall in love again?

Into the Storm


Melanie Moreland - 2013
    Pain, loneliness and terror are what she is leaving. Where she is headed doesn’t matter as long as it’s away from the hell her life has become. Joshua Bennett is trapped in a prison of his own making by the memories of his past. Traumatized and isolated, he is a reclusive writer, living a quiet, lonely life, his only companion his dog, Bear. It is what he knows, what he has accepted to be his life.One dark night, one huge storm, and one ice patch brings them together. He finds himself with an unexpected houseguest with no memory. She wakes up a stranger to herself and the man watching her. Even more mysterious is the lack of any sort of identification with her or in her car. She is an enigma to both of them. Trapped by the storm and isolated from the outside world, they slowly open up, learning to trust and love, until the world once again shows up, threatening the fragile peace of their newly discovered world, and tearing them apart. There are many twists and turns as they struggle to find each other, overcoming both the mental and physical elements that keep them apart. A story about overcoming our fears, finding love and learning to live again.

Trading Yesterday


Kahlen Aymes - 2017
     Chase, I need you. Please come. -Teagan Something inside me snapped as her text screamed from the screen of my phone. My heart started pounding as I was sucked into a vortex of emotions, pulled unwillingly into a past I wanted to forget. Teagan Tessler was the love of my life. At least, I thought so. My professional soccer career was part of the we future planned together, but an offer one year ahead of schedule sent me to London. Just months after I left, she betrayed me with my best friend without explanation and I was completely and utterly destroyed. After six years, I could breathe again and my professional and personal life was in a good place. I’d have to be insane to consider ripping open those wounds, but whatever it was, this had to be huge. The truth of my feelings resonated; my head told me to shut off the phone and forget her forever, but my traitorous heart told me to get on a plane, no questions asked. Trading Yesterday is a roller coaster of emotion; ultimate loss, longing, betrayal, and forgiveness that will restore your faith in unconditional love and leave you gasping for more.

Drowning Erin


Elizabeth O'Roark - 2017
    She and Brendan have waged a war of mutual disdain for years, but when Brendan picks up the pieces after her world unravels, they’ll be forced to admit that beneath their dislike is something else entirely—something they’re not supposed to feel. Because Brendan isn’t just her nemesis…He’s also her fiance’s best friend.

Unteachable


Leah Raeder - 2013
    The summer before senior year, she has plans: get into a great film school, convince her mom to go into rehab, and absolutely do not, under any circumstances, screw up her own future.But life has a way of throwing her plans into free-fall.When Maise meets Evan at a carnival one night, their chemistry is immediate, intense, and short-lived. Which is exactly how she likes it: no strings. But afterward, she can’t get Evan out of her head. He’s taught her that a hookup can be something more. It can be an unexpected connection with someone who truly understands her. Someone who sees beyond her bravado to the scared but strong girl inside.That someone turns out to be her new film class teacher, Mr. Evan Wilke.Maise and Evan resolve to keep their hands off each other, but the attraction is too much to bear. Together, they’re real and genuine; apart, they’re just actors playing their parts for everyone else. And their masks are slipping. People start to notice. Rumors fly. When the truth comes to light in a shocking way, they may learn they were just playing parts for each other, too.Smart, sexy, and provocative, Unteachable is about what happens when a love story goes off-script.

Want You


Jen Frederick - 2018
    It’s Leka Moore. I don’t care that he took me in when he was barely more than a kid himself. I don’t care that he raised me. I don’t care everyone thinks being with him is wrong. I know we belong together, and the only person I need to convince is him. Leka I found her in the corner of a dark alley. If I hadn’t taken her with me, she would’ve died that night—or maybe worse. Before I knew it, she became the light in my dark life, the haven from the madness. I watched her grow up. I tried to teach her right from wrong. Now that she’s an adult, I’m feeling things that no good man should ever feel. But then…I’ve never been a good man. I have a chance at redemption by saving her from the greatest danger of all—me. A stand alone novel.

We Were Once


S.L. Scott - 2020
    Scott, crafts her signature heartfelt style into a brand new emotional, second chance, standalone romance. I have three goals: graduate from an Ivy League university, get into medical school, and follow in my father’s well-established footsteps. Everything was going exactly as planned until the local bad boy was delivered to my doorstep. Literally.From the moment we meet, my old life becomes unrecognizable, but I have no regrets. I’m utterly captivated by him. His smirk. His heart. His sharp wit. He pushes me to live, to be wild, to pursue the dream I’ve always hidden inside.To the rest of the world, we make no sense.Me, the girl from the gilded New England coast.Joshua, from the small city of New Haven.To us, we’re destiny.Together, we had it all. Desperately. Madly. In love.Until we didn’t. One tragic night changed everything.

The Secret Ex-Boyfriend


Krista Ritchie - 2017
     And then we broke Aerial Ethereal’s biggest rule together. We’ve been paying the price ever since. Corporate won’t let me see her. Or speak to her. And we painfully signed on the dotted line in agreement. Erasing our secret relationship from existence. Now I’m twenty, and I hate Corporate. But I can’t leave. My family makes up one-third of Aerial Ethereal’s cast list. I love them.(And I still love her.) BAYLEE WRIGHT Luka is back. My undeniably hot secret ex-boyfriend was just shifted to the Vegas show Infini. We’re working together again on a show that means too much to me. No distractions. Even if the sexy, rebellious boy with hidden troubles completely stole my teenage heart.Aerial Ethereal demands he remains my tragic secret.This book was previously published with the title Infini.