Book picks similar to
27: Dropping the Gloves by Mignon Mykel
second-chance
sports
cheating
sports-romance
The Sun and Her Star
Dylan Allen - 2018
Once upon a time, that star shone only for me. Now, I have to share him with the rest of the world. For a while, I thought I could do it. Because, beneath the hypnotic smile, gorgeous body and God-given charm that made him famous, I still caught glimpses of my best friend.Of the boy who called me sunshine and loved me. I wore that love like a crown . . . until he placed it on another’s head. Losing him was agony, distance felt like the only cure. When tragedy reunites us after years apart, it only takes one touch to erase the past. Just like that, I'm back in his arms. He promises this time will be different. But I’m afraid to believe him. Because behind his star’s blinding brilliance is a darkness that doesn’t want to let him go. I know a star that bright can’t belong to just one person, but my jealous heart doesn’t want to share him.I want all of him . . . even if wanting what doesn't belong to me leads me to ruin.
The Player Next Door
K.A. Tucker - 2020
With a teaching job secured and an adorable fixer-upper to call home, things in her life are finally looking up.That is, until she finds out that Shane Beckett lives next door.Shane Beckett, the handsome and charismatic high school star quarterback who smashed her heart. The lying, cheating player who was supposed to be long gone, living the pro football dream and fooling women into thinking he's Prince Charming. Shane Beckett, who is as attractive as ever and flashing his dimples at her as if he has done no wrong.Scarlet makes it abundantly clear that old wounds have not been forgotten. Neighbors they may be, but friends they most certainly are not. She won't allow herself to fall for the single father and firefighter again, no matter how many apologies he offers, how many times he rushes to her aid, or how hard he makes her heart pound.But as she spends more time with him, she begins to fear that maybe she's wrong. Maybe Shane has changed.And maybe this time she's the one playing herself—out of a chance at true happiness.
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.
Until We Break
Jamie Howard - 2015
Luke Evans is faster and sexier than her Maserati, but with her heart still on the mend, she’s not interested in taking him for a test drive. Despite their initial disdain for each other, emotion and passion simmer, complicating their fragile friendship. But when a tragic loss and devastating betrayal send them spiraling, their growing love isn’t enough to save them.That was five years ago, practically a different lifetime and definitely a different Sloane. Before she’s been hardened by booze, sex, and as much distance as she could get from the past. Now, called home on a family emergency, she’s determined to hold onto her heart the next time she sees Luke.Except Sloane’s not the only one who’s changed. Luke’s turned his life around. Only the reappearance of Sloane and the reminder of his biggest mistake can put a dent in his plans. Luke is set on fixing what he’s broken. But with her emotions boiling to the surface, Sloane needs to decide if falling in love is life’s greatest gift or its cruelest joke.
Take This Regret
A.L. Jackson - 2011
For Christian, it was the day he betrayed Elizabeth. Christian Davison has a plan for his life. He is determined to become an attorney and to one day take his place as partner in his father’s law firm. Nothing will stand in his way, not even Elizabeth Ayers and their unborn child. After Christian cuts her from his life, Elizabeth spends the next five years struggling to provide for her daughter and willing to sacrifice anything to give her child a safe, comfortable life. For five years, Christian has regretted the day he walked away from his family and will do anything to win them back just as Elizabeth will do anything to protect her daughter from the certain heartache she believes Christian will bring upon them. When Christian wrestles his way into their lives, Elizabeth is faced with asking herself if it is possible to forgive someone when they’ve committed the unforgivable and if it is possible to find a love after it has been buried in years of hate. Or are there some wounds that go so deep they can never heal? They say everyone deserves a second chance.Lost to You and Take This Regret can be read as Stand-Alone Novels. Recommended reading order: Lost to You, Take This Regret, If Forever Comes
Unruly
Cora Brent - 2015
At the end we found each other.Along the way we found everything else.” After a humiliating betrayal, Claudia Giordano heads home only long enough to watch her irresponsible father, Jack, marry her old high school nemesis. Claudia doesn’t believe in love stories anymore. But she never planned on connecting with a wild young baseball player named Easton Malone. She tells herself Easton is cocky, careless and a bad choice on every level. The only option is to forget the hot, reckless week they shared, no matter what her heart says. ***Jack Giordano thinks that after all the mistakes he’s made since becoming a teenage father he’s finally found his happily ever after with sweet Anya. Jack believes love can conquer anything. But he didn’t understand how the joy of building the perfect family would dissolve into agony as he watches the girl of his dreams fade away. *** In the midst of one couple’s tragic ending, another will find a new beginning. And it turns out the most unruly collision of two hearts might have been fated all along…
Broken Dreams
Callie Anderson - 2017
Ethan is the boy who climbed into my bedroom every night.He's everything I love.Laced with everything I despise.He's every happy memory.And every shattered dream.He's my everything.But he broke every part of me.I'm supposed to hate him.But I can't.I don't know how.
Fighting For a Second Chance
Nikki Ash - 2016
I’m starting college and can’t be distracted. Besides, he has his own life to get back to. CooperThe moment I saw her I knew she was the one, but what my heart wants it doesn’t get. I know how life works. I’ve been fighting most of my life. My dad was a fighter, and so was his dad. I watched my mom cheat on him, and in return, he destroyed her. I will never do that to a woman. I get thirty hours with Liz and then we’re both walking away. At the end of the day, all we’ll have are the memories we have created here in Miami. ***Five years later, Liz runs into Cooper, only he has no idea that memories weren’t the only thing they created in Miami. He broke her heart once the day he left and now she’s guarded. Will he succeed in winning her heart over a second time? The only thing he knows for sure is that he’s fighting for a second chance, and this time, he won’t let her go that easily.
Against the Ropes
Carly Fall - 2013
. . if he can’t win back the heart of the woman he loves. . .Five years ago Dylan Gomez had it all. He was an up-and-coming boxer with a loving girlfriend, and his sights were set on the big league. Then he let the hype of the fans inflate his ego—he thought he was invincible. That all changed when an alcohol-fueled decision altered the course of his life. He lost his girlfriend and then bit-by-bit his life crumbled around him.Physical therapist, Regan Holloway, has coasted through life for the last five years. She’s been in the same place all that time and most of her things are still in boxes. Agreeing to a “friendly” date with a co-worker, she ends up ringside and face-to-face with the man she’d fled to forget—Dylan.Dylan’s turning his life around and working his way back up the ranks; he’s got a big fight lined up in thirty days that will be his ticket back into the pros—if he can win. The only thing holding him back is an old shoulder injury and Regan not being by his side.When Max, Dylan’s manager, convinces Regan to come with them and work on his shoulder for the fight, she knows she needs to keep things professional so that she won’t be hurt again.In the thirty-day countdown to the big fight, secrets are revealed, their passion is reignited, and the past threatens to haunt their future. On fight day, Dylan and Regan are truly against the ropes
Love Surfaced
Michelle Lynn - 2015
We stayed on our designated sides of the relationship circle. Ignoring swarming butterflies.Brushing off skipped heartbeats.Settling on lingering stares.Here’s the secret … a hand extended over that invisible line once, exponentially changing the equation. I was convinced we could make our relationship work until Tanner broke the trust he embedded in me from the age of seven. One deceit of mega proportions and the relationship we built for that short month vanished. I swore never to speak to him again and it’s worked. Until now—two years later, when my brother’s wedding places me face-to-face with the best man—Tanner McCain. Leaving one equation to be solved. Can love surface twice?
The Return of Brody McBride
Jennifer Ryan - 2014
. . and he's in for the surprise of his life.Former bad boy, now-decorated Army Ranger Brody McBride is home and on a mission: Find the woman he never should have left behind and right the wrong he did eight years ago.When the man she loved broke her heart and skipped town, Rain Evans picked up the pieces. But along with heartbreak, Brody left her something infinitely better than she could have imagined: two beautiful daughters. One she gave birth to, and the other she rescued from the woman who helped destroy her relationship with Brody.Brody is shocked to discover he's a father, and he's more determined than ever to win back Rain and protect his girls. Can they rekindle the love they once shared and become the family they were always meant to be? Or will a danger from their past return and ruin everything?
Forever Innocent
Deanna Roy - 2013
On what should have been one of the happiest nights of her life, she and her boyfriend Gavin watched a nurse disconnect the ventilator from their seven-day-old baby. During the funeral two days later, Gavin walked out and never returned.Since then, her life has been a spiral of disasters. The only thing that has helped is her ability to black out whenever the pain gets too hard to bear, a habit that has become an addiction.When Gavin shows up in her astronomy class four years later, he is hell-bent on getting her back, insisting she forgive him. Corabelle knows she can’t resist the touch that fills the empty ache that has haunted her since he left. But if he learns what she has done, if he follows the trail back through her past, her secrets will destroy their love completely. And once again, she’ll lose the only person who always believed she was innocent.New Adult Contemporary Romance
Once More With Feeling
Megan Crane - 2012
If only she could figure out how she got into this position in the first place, Sarah is sure she could fix it. Somehow. But when Sarah digs into her past, she finds she has to face all the ghosts she left behind—and the reason she left them there. One very tall, very sexy reason named Alec Frasier, who might hold the key to the kind of future Sarah used to dream about. Yet when Tim wakes up and can’t remember what he did, Sarah has the chance to slip back into her old life as if she never left it. Trouble is, she’s no longer sure it fits…
Picking up the Pieces
Jessica Prince - 2013
It’s taken years, but Emmy is finally starting to pick up the pieces of her broken life. Until the man who destroyed her heart returns, bringing with him the pain of the past. Running from Emmy was the only way Lucas Allen knew he could protect her from the demons he carried with him. After spending one perfect night together, Luke took off, certain he couldn’t possibly give Emmy everything she deserved. Eight long years later, he’s returned to Cloverleaf to try and make up for his mistakes. He can only hope it isn’t too late. Loving Luke has always been easy. It’s forgiving him that seems impossible. Now it’s up to Emmy to decide whether to give him a second chance or let him go for good.
Lover
Marni Mann - 2017
I couldn’t escape him. I didn’t want to. I was his. He was mine. But he wasn’t my husband. My once treasured marriage was now flawed and imperfect. By the time the guilt set in, it was too late. Reality was trying to keep me away from my obsession. My husband was that reality. My obsession was West. But West was forbidden. Taken. Married. We were swingers. It was the perfect arrangement. Until I fell in love… With West.