Book picks similar to
A Dark Road by Amanda Lance


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Make it Count


Megan Erickson - 2014
    The defective organ is constantly distracted, terrible at statistics, and absolutely flooded with inappropriate thoughts about her boyfriend’s gorgeous best friend, Alec…who just so happens to be her brand new math tutor. Who knew nerd was so hot?Kat usually goes through tutors like she does boyfriends—both always seem to bail when they realize how hopeless she is. It’s safer for her heart to keep everyone at arm’s reach. But Alec is always stepping just a little too close.Alec Stone should not be fantasizing about Kat. She’s adorable, unbelievably witty, and completely off limits. He’d never stab his best friend in the back…But when secrets are revealed, the lines of loyalty are blurred. To make it count, Alec must learn messy human emotions can’t be solved like a trigonometry function. And Kat has to trust Alec may be the first guy to want her for who she is, and not in spite of it.

The Cinderella Princess


Melissa McClone - 2015
    Relying on a man only leads to heartache. She takes care of herself, and work defines her life. But Emily soon finds herself in the hands of a real-life prince who defines the words charming and sexy. Not to mention reckless. If Prince Lucas doesn’t find a royal bride, Emily’s dream of being named a partner at the advertising firm will die.Luc’s fun-loving ways have made him a magnet for scandal. His father gives Luc an ultimatum—find a wife on a reality TV show or be disowned. Rules require him to marry nobility, but after he meets the uptight American sent to find him find a princess bride, his search for Cinderella might be over. Too bad Emily wants nothing to do with him. Perhaps he can show her that fairytale endings can happen in real life…

The Fine Line


Alicia Kobishop - 2013
    No attachments.I'm sick and tired of losing the men I've grown to love. If my mother's serial relationship disasters have taught me anything, it's that getting involved with a man only results in heartbreak.But the second my eyes lock with street racer Logan Tanner's, my heart beats wildly against the walls I've built around it.Stupid heart.It doesn't help that he's got the body of a god and the eyes of an angel. I'm drawn to him in a way I've never felt before. And don't even get me started about rush of adrenaline that courses through my veins every time I flag one of his races.I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought we could just be friends. I thought I could keep us from crossing the line.But with every encounter, every touch, and every kiss, Logan cruises through all my red lights.Our relationship becomes emotional, messy, complicated...even dangerous. If I give in to the inevitable, our world will come crashing down around us.I guess I've got a decision to make.Is my heart strong enough? Is love worth the struggle? Is it worth fighting for?Will you like this book?The Fine Line is a friends-to-lovers standalone, with an HEA and no cliffhanger. If you love new adult romance and enjoy a delicious combination of drama, heartbreak, humor, action, a heavy dose of angst, and a sexy bad-boy who comes to reveal a swoon-worthy sweet side...you'll love this book!Appropriate for readers over the age of seventeen (due to mature content, strong language, and sexual situations).

Plastic Hearts


Lisa De Jong - 2013
    I like it that way. I grew up in a fake society where plastic hearts rule. If our hearts are made of plastic, they can never be broken. My parents have expectations and I do everything I can to meet them, even if it means giving up on my own dreams. Now, all I want is to be free to make my own choices.Dane Wright is everything I have been warned to stay away from. We met one night while I was with my perfect, parent-approved boyfriend and I haven’t stopped thinking about him. I don’t want to like him. I am doing everything I can to ignore his pull, but my heart seems to want what it cannot have, what it has never had.Can he measure up? He may think I am too good for him, but maybe he is too good for me. Life is a series of choices and I have never been able to make my own. Until one day, when my heart decides to make a choice for me.Recommended for mature readers due to sexual content and language

Plain Jayne


Laura Drewry - 2014
      Worn out from the long drive back home, Jayne Morgan can only smirk at the irony: Of course the first person she sees from her old life is Nick Scott. Once best friends, they lost touch when Jayne left town at eighteen, but nothing could keep them apart forever. Jayne has returned to take over her grandmother’s bookstore, determined to put all her bittersweet memories and secret disappointments strictly in the past — until, that is, Nick insists she bunk at his place.   Nick never did care what people thought about having a girl for a best friend — or the “scandal” she caused by showing up to his wife’s funeral four years earlier — so he’s got no problem with the gossips now. Jayne was always the one person he could count on in his life. Now Nick is starting to realize that he never wants her to leave again... and that being “just friends” isn’t going to be enough anymore.  Includes a special message from the editor, as well as an excerpt from another Loveswept title.

Leap of Faith


Jamie Blair - 2013
    Chris is one of the best parts of her new life, the only person who's ever made her feel safe. And now that she's found him, there's no way she can tell the truth:Her real name is Faith, not Leah. She's seventeen, not nineteen. And the baby isn't hers—Faith kidnapped her.Faith's history catches up with her when a cop starts asking questions and Chris's aunt spots her picture in the newspaper. She knows it's time to run again, but if Faith leaves, she'll lose Chris. If Chris is in love with a lie, though, did Faith ever really have him in the first place?

We Were Here


Daisy Prescott - 2016
    
This is the story of seven friends. We met in college, completely free for the first time in our lives and determined to enjoy every minute of it. For four years, we gossiped and flirted, partied and road-tripped. We were inseparable. Each of us has our own story of falling in or out of love. Of finding out who we are. Of growing up. We thought we knew everything. We knew nothing. We Were Here is where the Modern Love Stories begins, in a standalone that perfectly captures the humor, angst, and sheer chaos of college.

So Much to Learn


Jessie L. Star - 2014
    "You have to teach me…" I faltered here as the whole thing was really just too sordid to put into words. I thought I had a good grasp of the English language, but I had no clue how to put my dilemma to him. "Teach you…?" He prompted. "Teach me it!" I finally choked out. "What happens when you actually like the…touching and the….the…fondling and the…it, you know." I had never been so embarrassed in my life. The age old 'you could have fried on egg on my face' adage actually seemed kind of plausible I felt that hot and flustered. But - would you believe it? - Jack still hadn't cottoned on to what I was on about. He looked at me completely blankly and I could almost see his mind whirring as he tried to connect the bits… After a rather hideous break up with her boyfriend due to her inability to 'put out’, Talia bullies her brother's best friend into teaching her the complexities of a 'full' relationship. Turns out uni courses have nothing on life lessons! Please note this story contains some mature language and content.

The Breakaway


Michelle D. Argyle - 2012
    Escape isn't high on her list of priorities when all she has to return to is an abusive boyfriend and parents who never paid much attention to her. For the first time in her life she's part of a family-even if it is a family of criminals. But she's still a captive. In a desperate attempt to regain some control in her life, Naomi embarks on a dangerous plan to make one of her kidnappers think she's falling in love with him. The plan works too well, and when faced with the chance to escape, Naomi isn't sure she wants to take it.

Sweetness


Lindsay Paige - 2011
    But after moving to a new town with her dad, a charming boy makes it impossible for her to disappear. Despite her feelings of unworthiness, Emily soon finds herself drawn to the safety of Jake's world. Good looking and the star of the hockey team, Jake has a lot going for him. What most people don't see is the difficult life he has at home. When quiet Emily steals his heart, Jake vows to help her discover she is worthy of love. Just when the two of them realize the sweetness of their relationship, they are put to the test. Only together can they overcome their haunted pasts to fight for a future together

We Own Tonight


Corinne Michaels - 2017
    I’m not a one-night stand kind of woman. I’m especially not the woman who has a few drinks at a concert and ends up in bed with my childhood celebrity crush, Eli Walsh. However, that’s exactly where I find myself. What’s a girl to do after a drunken mistake? Run. I grab my clothes and get away from the powerful, irresistible, and best-sex-of-my-life superstar as fast as I can. His gorgeous green eyes, rock-hard body, and cocky smile have no place in my world. My life is complicated enough.Someone forgot to tell him that. Eli is relentless. Pushing his way into my heart, wearing me down, proving he’s nothing like I assumed, and everything I need. But when my world shatters to pieces, he holds the broken bits together. Unwillingly, I fall desperately in love with him. He made me think we’d have forever . . . I should’ve listened when he said we could only own tonight.

Kings of Rittenhouse


Maya Hughes - 2018
    What's the worst that could happen? Long live the Kings...

Forever & Always


Jasinda Wilder - 2013
    Even if it’s just random stuff, nothing important, they’re important to me. Gramps is great, and I love working on the ranch.But…I’m lonely.I feel disconnected, like I’m no one, like I don’t belong anywhere. Like I’m just here until something else happens. I don’t even know what I want with my future. But your letters, they make me feel connected to something, to someone. I had a crush on you, when we first met. I thought you were beautiful. So beautiful. It was hard to think of anything else. Then camp ended and we never got together, and now all I have of you is these letters.S**t.I just told you I have a crush on you. HAD. Had a crush. Not sure what is anymore. A letter-crush? A literary love? That’s stupid. Sorry. I just have this rule with myself that I never throw away what I write and I always send it, so hopefully this doesn’t weird you out too much. I had a dream about you too. Same kind of thing. Us, in the darkness, together.Just us.And it was like you said, a memory turned into a dream, but a memory of something that’s never happened, but in the dream it felt so real, and it was more, I don’t even know, more RIGHT than anything I’ve ever felt, in life or in dreams. I wonder what it means that we both had the same dream about each other. Maybe nothing, maybe everything. You tell me.Cade----------------------------------------------------------------Cade,We’re pen pals. Maybe that’s all we’ll ever be. I don’t know. If we met IRL (in real life, in case you’re not familiar with the term) what would happen? And just FYI, the term you used, a literary love? It was beautiful. So beautiful. That term means something, between us now. We are literary loves. Lovers? I do love you, in some strange way. Knowing about you, in these letters, knowing your hurt and your joys, it means something so important to me, that I just can’t describe. I need your art, and your letters, and your literary love.If we never have anything else between us, I need this. I do. Maybe this letter will only complicate things, but like you I have a rule that I never erase or throw away what I’ve written and I always send it, no matter what I write in the letter. Your literary love,Ever

Just One Chance


C.A. Harms - 2017
     You left me in a terrible haze, and I can’t find my god damn wallet. Or my left shoe. How the hell does one lose their shoe? I have no f*cking clue. All I know is that my night started out with one thing in mind…to have a little fun. The problem with that? I can’t remember a damn thing, except one. Morgan’s soft and needy moans. It’s a sound I will never forget, and just thinking about it makes my heart race and my pulse quicken. And I want to hear it over and over again…I crave it. But Morgan’s a mystery. The harder I try, the more she resists. There’s one thing she doesn’t know about me though…I’m not one to give up. I’ll play her game. I’ll let her think she’s won. But in the end, I will have her. Because all I need is Just One Chance to prove she’s meant for me…

Dodge the Bullet


Christy Hayes - 2011
    But Sarah doesn’t know a Colorado Senator has earmarked her ranch for purchase and he’ll do anything to get it. Unwilling to sell, she dismisses his continued offers and moves ahead by improving the land with the help of a sexy stranger. A.J. Dodge is a man with a past. He’s returned to his hometown ready to set down roots and make things right with his family and whatever anyone else thinks he doesn’t give a damn. Until his old friend Tommy Thornton asks a favor, a favor he can’t refuse, and Dodge becomes involved with the beautiful widow Sarah Woodward. She’s alone with her young sons on a dilapidated ranch she’s determined to get up and running with or without his help. Under pressure to deliver the Woodward ranch to a land developer with shady connections, the senator sets in motion a dangerous plot to convince Sarah to sell. Dodge will risk everything to protect Sarah and the boys including his heart.