Book picks similar to
The Second Cup (The Butterfly Effect, #1) by Sarah Marie Graye
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The Astronaut and the Star
Jen Comfort - 2022
But after a PR disaster, Reggie is off the list for a lunar mission. To rehabilitate her reputation with NASA, she agrees to a different kind of assignment: astronaut “training” with a Hollywood action hero.Jon Leo is a charmer. With credits that include an underperforming sitcom and a campy action flick called Space Dude, his upcoming role in a prestigious movie could prove he’s a star. But Jon isn’t just big muscles and an otherworldly smile—he’s also a total space nerd. He’s pumped about his own personal space camp…until he meets ice-cold Reggie.Although Reggie and Jon are polar opposites, their mutual attraction is undeniable, and it only takes a few weeks in close quarters for them to give in to its magnetic force. Jon is set on convincing Reggie this is a match made in the heavens, but her future is in space, and his is among stars of the Hollywood kind. The odds of successfully launching a real relationship outside the confines of the training base are anything but optimal.Reggie, content with keeping things casual, is forced by a sudden turn of events to confront the possibility of losing Jon forever. Now, she’ll do whatever it takes to win both the man and the moon.
Finding My Prince Charming
J.S. Cooper - 2014
Or a Prince. Or the biggest asshole she had ever met.Xavier Van Romerius is the playboy Prince of Europe and he loves his life. He doesn’t do relationships, and never wants to get married. But when he see’s Lola Franklin flirting with his little brother Casper, he realizes that maybe he needs to rethink his ideas about love before the wrong Prince gets the girl.
Felicity at the Cross Hotel
Helena Fairfax - 2017
A few weeks hiking and swimming should restore her.But then the hotel’s new owner, Patrick Cross, takes Felicity for the replacement barmaid, and things don’t turn out quite to plan. With a grumpy chef, a waiter with love troubles, and the old Tudor building in need of renovation, Felicity’s quiet break soon turns into a working holiday.But Patrick’s dreams lie beyond the mountains, and Felicity’s loyalties lie with her family, and anyway, holidays can’t last forever...can they?
Paper Doll Lina
Robyn Lucas - 2021
She lives in a beautiful home in the Atlanta suburbs. Her husband, David, is a well-to-do investment banker. She’s raised two wonderful teenagers. To the outside world, the Henry family is perfect. What no one knows is that Lina’s paper doll life is being torn apart in a controlling and abusive marriage. When Lina develops an unexpected friendship with another man, and reconnects with her former best friend, she begins navigating a way out of the emotional minefield that is her home.But as David senses his loss of control, he becomes more dangerous, and Lina must do everything in her power to protect herself and her children. In order to take back the happiness she deserves, Lina must first rediscover the strength and the fearlessness of her three-dimensional self.
Welcome to Paradise
Rosalind James - 2013
Maybe she'll get closer to her boyfriend, who hasn't been all that nice to her lately. Get fired up about her job again. Who knows, she might even win a million dollars.Gabe Kincaid and his brother Alec are after that million too, though. Mira and Scott are no threat at all, not when everybody involved is going to want to kill Scott after the first day. And there's no bond stronger than a twin's. What could possibly go wrong?Note: Despite the TV cameras, things do heat up a bit in the Idaho summer. If you prefer your romance unheated, this may not be the book for you.
It Started With Paris
Cathy Kelly - 2014
At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend, cheered on by delighted tourists. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Bridgeport, Ireland...Leila's been nursing a badly broken heart since her love-rat husband just upped and left her one morning, but she's determined to put on a brave face for the bride. Vonnie, a widow and exceptional cake-maker, is just daring to let love back into her life, although someone seems determined to stop it.And Grace, a divorced head teacher, finds the impending wedding of her son means that she's spending more time with her ex-husband. After all those years apart, is it possible she's made a mistake?With her warmth and insight, Cathy Kelly weaves a delightful tale spinning out from a once-in-a-lifetime moment, drawing together a terrific cast of characters who feel like old friends. IT STARTED WITH PARIS is the sparkling new novel from No.1 bestseller Cathy Kelly.
Things We Set on Fire
Deborah Reed - 2013
Jackson, Vivvie’s husband, was shot and killed 30 years ago, and the ramifications have splintered the family into their own isolated remembrances and recriminations.This deeply personal, hauntingly melancholy look at the damages families inflict on each other – and the healing that only they can provide – is filled with flinty, flawed and complex people stumbling towards some kind of peace. Like Elizabeth Strout and Kazuo Isiguro, Deborah Reed understands a story and its inhabitants reveal themselves in the subtleties: the space between the thoughts, the sigh behind the smile, and the unreliable lies people tell themselves that ultimately reveal the deepest truths.
Sunshine & Secrets
Daisy James - 2018
Leaving London and her memories of heartbreak behind she hops on a plane to the hilltop cocoa plantation in St Lucia.But this beautiful island break might be more work than she’d expected…. With only two weeks to have the kitchen installed, cocoa pods going missing from the plantation and the notoriously relaxed island workmen to contend with, she’s going to need some help. Gruff but charming estate manager Zach Baxter, is only too happy to offer his opinions. As the two clash heads can they remain focussed on the job in hand and get the cookery school finished in time?
Pack your bags and jump right into the sun and secrets of The Paradise Cookery School. Perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan, Jenny Oliver and Kat French.
The Idea of Love
Patti Callahan Henry - 2015
She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love—until her husband dies in a tragic sailing accident while trying to save her. Or so she'll have everyone believe. Screenwriter Hunter needs a hit, but crippling writers' block and a serious lack of motivation are getting him nowhere. He's on the look-out for a love story. It doesn't matter who it belongs to. When Hunter and Ella meet in Watersend, South Carolina, it feels like the perfect match, something close to fate. In Ella, Hunter finds the perfect love story, full of longing and sacrifice. It's the stuff of epic films. In Hunter, Ella finds possibility. It's an opportunity to live out a fantasy – the life she wishes she had because hers is too painful. And more real. Besides. what's a little white lie between strangers? But one lie leads to another, and soon Hunter and Ella find themselves caught in a web of deceit. As they try to untangle their lies and reclaim their own lives, they feel something stronger is keeping them together. And so they wonder: can two people come together for all the wrong reasons and still make it right?
After I Do
Taylor Jenkins Reid - 2014
They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?
If You Believed in Love
Staci Stallings - 2011
Stinging from an unimaginable loss, he has withdrawn from life, wanting only to live out his existence with as little interference as possible. However, when his sister talks him into auditing an English Literature class at the local community college, he reluctantly accepts the invitation to abandon his lonely apartment. Intent upon making an appearance for his sister’s sake and then disappearing for his own, Jonathon sulks into class. But when he meets Elizabeth Forester, the professor, Jonathon learns there is more to life and to love than he ever could have imagined. "Staci Stallings' books are Christian romance at its best!" IF YOU BELIEVED IN LOVE is a fascinating mix of literature and faith. A Contemporary Christian romance, the novel explores life, love, death, and redemption. It will surely find its way into your romance novels and inspirational books collections. *~* EXCERPT *~* “Turn to Appearances, page 31.” Without more than a second’s time, she continued without reading her book. “And so you found that poor room dull,/Dark, hardly to your taste, my dear?/Its features seemed unbeautiful;/But this I know—‘twas there, not here,/You plighted troth to me, the word/Which—ask that poor room how it heard. “And this rich room obtains your praise/Unqualified—so bright, so fair,/So all whereat perfection stays?/Aye, but remember—here, not there,/The other word was spoken!—Ask/This rich room how you dropped the mask! “Browning uses the metaphor of a house again in this one, a structure of some kind with different rooms. And what’s the story with this house?” “The guy likes one room but not the other.” Quiet depth filled her eyes. “Why?” She turned, and her gaze caught a raised hand. “Mr. Hansen?” “Because in one room he was trying to be something he wasn’t, and in the other, he dropped the mask.” “And the first room, where he was wearing the mask was…?” “Unbeautiful,” Susana said. “Dull and dark.” Ms. Forester seemed lost in the thought. “And the second room? What was it like?” “Unqualified,” someone down front said, “so bright, so fair.” “He’s saying the same thing in both poems, is he not?” She turned on the toe of her boot and gazed at the whole of her students. “Be who you are. Drop the mask. Be brave enough to show the world, and far from losing yourself and being criticized like a finite clod, you may be immortalized like Shakespeare, or at the very least, the room you’re standing in might just seem a little brighter than the one where you were before.” Her attention jumped up to the clock. “Oh, look at the time. Be sure to read the last selections for Thursday’s class. See you then.” It was like snapping awake from a dream and not being at all able to shake it. Jonathon stood as the others did as well. His mind spun trying to think of something, some reason that could keep him here with her for one more minute. He checked his things, gathering them slowly, watching her down front the whole time. One of the other students stepped up to her, and she bent to listen. What could he ask her? What question would be good enough to go to the front?
When Life Gives You Lemons
Fiona Gibson - 2020
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Between tending to the whims of her seven-year-old and the demands of her boss, Viv barely gets a moment to herself. It’s not quite the life she wanted, but she hasn’t run screaming for the hills yet.But then Viv’s husband Andy makes his mid-life crisis her problem. He’s having an affair with his (infuriatingly age-appropriate) colleague, a woman who – unlike Viv – doesn’t put on weight when she so much as glances at a cream cake.Viv suddenly finds herself single, with zero desire to mingle. Should she be mourning the end of life as she knows it, or could this be the perfect chance to put herself first?
Flawless
Jan Moran - 2014
After her parents are killed in an automobile accident, she becomes the sole provider for her younger twin sisters and her grandmother. Instead of attending college with her friends as planned, she rises to the challenge to guide and expand her family's business. She is in the midst of a critical international expansion into Asia when her carefully organized life begins to unravel.Verena is shaken to discover that her fiancé, Derrick, might be behind a scheme to take over her growing company. While she struggles to save the business that means everything to her, she meets Lance, an executive chef at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She encounters this intriguing man again while on a business trip to Paris, and soon gains a new perspective on love, romance, and relationships.When the unthinkable occurs and Verena's world collapses, her friends rally around her, among them Scarlett Sandoval, a top intellectual property attorney; Dahlia DuBois, a perfumer from an esteemed line of French perfumers; and Fianna Fitzgerald, a fashion designer with her own trendy boutique.Ultimately, Verena learns that truth, family, friendship, and love are the unshakable pillars of life. But will she get a second chance in business, or in love?Flawless is the first book in the Love, California series. Follow a group of smart, stylish, entrepreneurial friends as they navigate the turbulences of modern life in the business of beauty. Set in Beverly Hills with action flung across the globe, this engaging series features gutsy, determined best friends, and how they manage to live the lives of their dreams.
Second Hand Heart
Catherine Ryan Hyde - 2010
Struggling along with a life-threatening heart condition, her whole life has been one long preparation for death. But suddenly she is presented with a donor heart, and just in time. Now she gets to do something she never imagined she'd have to do: live.Richard is a 36-year-old man who’s just lost his beloved wife, Lorrie, in a car accident. Still in shock and not even having begun the process of grieving, he is invited to the hospital to meet the young woman who received his wife’s donor heart.Vida takes one look at Richard and feels she’s loved him all her life. And tells him so. Richard assumes she’s just a foolish young girl. And maybe she is. Or maybe there’s truth behind the theory of cellular memory, and maybe it really is possible for a heart to remember, at least for a time, on its own.Second Hand Heart is both a story of having to learn to live for the first time, and having to learn to live all over again.
Perfect Match
Zoe May - 2018
The only thing she’s not so great at? Picking the guys…After sitting through yet another dreadful date with a man who isn’t quite what she expected, Sophia is just about ready to give up on the whole dating scene. But her flatmate, Kate, persuades her to give it one more chance, only this time she must create a profile describing her ‘perfect’ man.Yes, he must look like Robert Pattinson and needs to own a multi-million pound business, but there are a couple of other deal breakers, too! So, when a guy comes along who ticks every box, surely there’s got to be a catch?
A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, perfect for fans of Catherine Bennetto and Rosie Blake!
Praise for Perfect Match: ‘I absolutely soaked in this book – Zoe’s writing is natural and warm, her characters are funny and her story kept me wondering what the blooming heck was going to happen! Perfect Match is a must-read modern fairytale.’ Lisa Dickenson