Book picks similar to
Believe in Me by Kris Jacen


female-author
ptsd
romantic
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SEALed with a Vow


Rachel McNeely - 2020
    Sonja Bradley is a determined woman who has spent her career caring for others, even if it means joining a compassionate mission to provide medical care to villagers in a war-torn area of the Middle East. While she accepted the risk, she never believed she and her companions would be captured by insurgents. 
Navy SEAL Nate Wheatley and his team are on a covert operation when they get orders to rescue a trio of American health workers. Though he is annoyed the women would so blithely put their safety at risk, he can’t help but admire the delectable doctor’s courage.Growing up, Sonja saw firsthand the toll her SEAL father’s job took on her mother and swore she would one day marry someone safe and sedate. There’s no room in her life for a domineering, arrogant warrior, even if there is a touching protective streak in him that’s a mile wide. Even if she can’t resist the vulnerability she senses in the gorgeous man.Nate once vowed to never give his heart to a woman while his country needed him. His job is too dangerous for divided loyalties—or so he’s always told himself. What’s a strong man to do when loving a strong woman is the only option left?

Protecting Lucianna


Tiffani Lynn - 2019
    After a horrific incident nearly took her life, she lives on the edge of being afraid of everything and not feeling anything at all. Pulling away from the people she loves most, she takes a trip. But when Lucianna finds herself stranded on a St. Augustine beach, she's anything but alone. Devlin’s quiet blue eyes hold her captive and his capable hands make her feel... safe. 

 Navy SEAL Devlin "Devil" Byrne went into the service after his little sister drowned. Just seventeen years old, a piece of him died that day too. Consumed by guilt, he keeps to himself, saving those he can and making amends the only way he knows how. When he meets beautiful and curvy Lucianna on the beach, he can’t help but be drawn to her brokenness, which mirrors his own. He learns that protecting someone is sometimes more about their heart than their body.  
With a new year on the horizon, and Christmas approaching, both are struggling to overcome the past before it takes them under. Devlin's about to discover that protecting Lucianna could be the key to saving himself.

Protecting Freedom


Jen Talty - 2020
    However, she’d paid her debt to society and all she wanted to do was ease back into the community, get a job, and live a quiet life without drawing any attention to herself.
She’d managed to turn her life around and even found herself a boyfriend. A good man. A man she could love.

Only, it seemed fate had other ideas for her and now she has to choose between the past and the future.

Parker “Baby” Roman is tired of playing the field. He might be young, but he’s ready to settle down and have a family and he has his sights set on the sexy, but aloof hostess of his favorite local water hole.

But Baby is ill-prepared to find out the woman of his dreams is a convicted felon and being with her could ruin his career. However, he’ll have to set all that aside when Katina’s life is on the line. He’ll do what it takes, but then he’ll have to let her go.

Or will he do what is in his heart?

Guarding Lauren


Barb Han - 2020
    He quickly realizes that things aren’t always as they seem when his assignment, Lauren James, cleans out her bank account and heads to a known drop spot in the Caribbean. Is she in deep with the criminal brother she supposedly barely knows?

Because of Marissa


Rachel Young - 2020
    A Navy SEAL. An enemy she never saw coming. 
Marissa Black is reaching the point of burnout. When her next concert ends in her being kidnapped and held hostage, she’s pretty sure she has reached her breaking point. She never expected the gorgeous Navy SEAL she reluctantly turned down five years ago to come to her rescue. And she certainly didn’t expect an unforeseen enemy to threaten their blossoming romance.
Leif Carter is a man accustomed to following his instincts. His instincts told him to join the Navy. His instincts told him that the men who made up his SEAL team would become more like his brothers. And most importantly, his instincts told him he had to get to know the sweet raven-haired beauty better. He just never expected it to be under such dangerous circumstances.

Securing Ara


Melissa Kay Clarke - 2019
    He’s also the most reserved and plays his cards close to his chest – not only when it comes to his job, but also his personal life. The wild and crazy bachelor lifestyle doesn’t appeal to him. He’d rather have one girl in his life than a revolving door of many and he’s got his eye on the one that he wants. The only problem is he needs to convince her of his sincerity.   Dr. Ara Palmer worked hard to get where she was in her career. As a Navy psychologist and trauma therapist, she finds satisfaction in helping her clients cope with problems and situations inherent to military service. Most would call it boring, but she found it to be thrilling – a little too thrilling lately as her life seems to have become one long list of accidents and mishaps. But, what if those accidents weren’t misfortune?   A mission gone wrong gets Railroad captured in a hostile country. He’s surprised to find someone from the team’s past has masterminded the whole thing in a bid to take them out, one at a time. With the others hurt, another team, headed by Wolf Steel, is sent in to rescue the hostages. Time is of the essence as one of them is critically wounded. They have to get them out, and now, before it’s too late for one of Railroad’s friends and for Ara. She’s been targeted and it’ll be game over if he doesn’t get home in time to save her.

Saving Veronica


Deanna L. Rowley - 2021
    After a near-fatal accident, she had to take a step back to reassess what she wanted out of life. The only thing missing was a man with the potential of starting a family. However, the only one that interests her wears a suit every day. Because of her previous relationship years ago, she made a vow to never ever date a man who wears a suit every day to work.Finnegan, Finn, Larson returned from doing ten years in the Marines to take over the reins of his family’s foundation. After wearing camo every day, he donned a suit and knuckled down to learn the ropes. Before he even started working at the family business, he encountered a passionate woman that set him on fire. He couldn’t wait to meet her again. Unfortunately, the next time he met her he was saving her life from a near-fatal accident.When they finally decided to get together, Ronnie’s past comes back and threatens not only her but her new life with Finn. Can their relationship survive?

Riding His Longboard (Billionaires Down Under, #3)


Sienna Blake - 2021
    

Protecting Sara


Lorelei Confer - 2021
    Left with a bionic shoulder and no clear future, he spends his days alone. But he’s forced back into action when the apartment building next to his explodes and he witnesses a female fleeing the scene.

 Sara Nelson lives under an alias, in constant fear from threats to her life. But three years of frequent moves have her longing for a forever home, so she settles in North Carolina. After a year of normality, an unexpected threat forces her to trust a handsome stranger.

 Jake’s attraction to Sara is immediate, but the sole thing on her mind is staying alive. He wants to protect her but can’t do it alone. Jake calls on his SEAL brothers to help him. But when their circle is penetrated, all hell breaks loose, and Jake must choose her life over his and the lives of his Team.

Freeing Fatima


Michele E. Gwynn - 2019
    He never believed himself a hero. They were both wrong.When Fatima Ali was taken by terrorists, she thought her life was over. When they took her mother away too, she lost all hope, until she saw the tall man with warm amber eyes.Sgt. Marcus DuBose, codename: Skyscraper, never allowed himself to grow attached to hostages. His job was to get in, rescue, and return them home with the greatest efficiency. The deadliest of his Spec Ops team, Skyscraper is cold and calculating, but beneath the icy surface beats the heart of a musician, and oddly enough, a man who believes he’s unworthy of love.In a shootout in Old Town Bucharest, he sees her for the first time. The high-value hostage is the daughter of the Islamic State’s newest bomb-maker. But she’s not the little girl he expected. Instead, he discovers she’s a young woman. A beautiful and brave young woman!When their eyes meet, something inside Skyscraper awakens, and when she screams for help, he comes running. With his captain and teammates at his side, he’s hot on the trail of the kidnappers in a race across Eastern Europe. With a mole leaking information inside their own command blowing their cover, time is not on their side. The clock is ticking as Skyscraper lets down his guard and breaks his own rule to free Fatima. Will she reject the highly-trained killer or will a fairytale finally come true for the star-crossed lovers?

Sultry Seattle Nights


Paige Yancey - 2019
    Siobhan Monahan is back in Seattle raising the daughter they conceived that night. When she accidentally overhears her emergency room patients speaking about a planned attack on her city, she’s on alert and scared for herself, her daughter and the people of the city. Her first instinct is to get her daughter to safety and then call and old friend she’d met on active duty, Hank Patterson who owns a security firm, Brotherhood Protectors. He sends some of his men to keep her safe and to help thwart the attack before people are killed. One of his men just happens to be her one-night-stand from six years. Boy is he surprised. J.B. Wayne, aka Atlas, has been with the brotherhood for five years after an injury sidelined him from the Navy SEALs. When his boss sends him to protect a woman and her family in Seattle, he’s surprised to find the woman he could never forget and she has a daughter with blue eyes, just like his. Temporarily setting aside his anger that Siobhan didn’t tell him he had a daughter, Atlas joins forces with Siobhan to discover the source and target of the pending attack, racing against time to stop the mercenaries before someone gets hurt. Working together rekindles their attraction and gives Atlas a chance to know his daughter. When the job is done, he’s determined to remain a part of their lives.

A Killer Talent


Mary Winter - 2019
    All she wants is her quiet life back. But the sexy agent they send make her want things she’s long buried and may force her to reveal a tragedy from her past. Daniel “Gonzo” Vondorn expects his job in Branson to be yet another gig. Protect the star. Get the bad guy. Go home. It doesn’t hurt that his good friend and fellow agent, Luis, is in the area. However Charity quickly gets under his skin, and when he rescues a stray cat, he starts wondering if perhaps he is ready to settle down. But first, he’s got to stop an ex-boyfriend bent on revenge… or worse.

A SEAL for Raven


Julia Bright - 2021
    She has no time for a boyfriend, even when the guy is as sexy as Zachary.Zachary “Mist” Fennel doesn’t know if there is a woman out there for him. When he meets Raven, he’s hooked. She doesn’t seem convinced, though. When she goes missing, he vows to rip apart the world to find her. But what if she doesn’t want him to find her?

Guarding Cherish


Rose Smith - 2020
     

When super sexy ex-Navy SEAL Riley “Bulldog” Rousseau flirts with Cherish Reynolds on the train to Paris, the one thing he does instantly… is turn her off. 
On her way to marry her dream man in the most romantic city in the world, some stereotypical French Casanova flirting with her is just an annoyance.
 Cherish can’t wait for her happily ever after to begin. She just knows that after all she’s been through the last couple of years, life is finally smiling down on her.
 But soon Cherish becomes embroiled in danger along with the nice American couple she meets on the train.
 The last thing she needs now is for her world to be turned upside down by imminent danger. But, as Cherish Reynolds full well knows, life doesn’t always give you what you want.

Protecting Harper


Olivia Michaels - 2021
    A former teammate gives Flint a new lease on life when he offers Flint a job in Colorado with Watchdog Protectors, a security company with its own secrets. Flint has the chance to meet and learn from Tex Keegan for a week while the computer genius and his wife Melody are visiting—Tex for work and Melody for a much-deserved vacation. Flint is no stranger to Colorado. It’s where he met, loved, and lost the woman of his dreams ten years ago.

Harper Marling knows she’s a dead woman walking. Her charming narcissist ex-husband has done his best to ruin her life from the minute she reached for freedom. Now, she’s on the cusp of taking down the powerful multi-millionaire and reclaiming her life, if she can keep her plans a secret. Blackballed from her job as a medical researcher, Harper’s just taken a temporary job with Watchdog Protectors when she runs into the man who broke her heart a decade ago. Harper isn't sure if she’s ready to love again, but Flint gives her a reason to try as he stirs a slumbering passion deep inside her.

James isn't done trying to destroy Harper. If he can't have her, no one can, let alone a retired SEAL-turned-bodyguard. Can Harper trust Flint, Tex, and Watchdog Protectors to have her six? Or will James’ deadly game of cat-and-mouse end Harper’s life—in service to a darker purpose?

Protecting Harper is the first book in the Watchdog Protectors Series which branches off from the Watchdog Security Series by Olivia Michaels. Each book can be read as a standalone with an HEA but they do have reoccurring characters.