Love Me Never


Sara Wolf - 2015
    Declare war on him.Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she’s lost eighty-five pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship.All the girls in her new school want one thing—Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack Hunter's never gone out with anyone. Sure, people have seen him downtown with beautiful women, but he's never given high school girls the time of day. Until Isis punches him in the face.Jack’s met his match. Suddenly everything is a game.The goal: Make the other beg for mercy.The game board: East Summit High.The reward: Something neither of them expected.

Torment: Part One


Dylan Page - 2021
    The one I knew I could always rely on.For many years, I accepted everyone and everything around me. But as I grew up, the veil was lifted, and I slowly came to understand how f*cked up it all really is. These men, who I considered uncles and close family friends, are members of the dominant MC, The Celtic Beasts. Shay is not only a proud member. He is the one they send in to do their dirty work. For some reason, this tough, muscled, terrifying guy, needs me to ground and comfort him.But I have always had bigger plans. Bigger dreams. I don’t want to be trapped here, in this life that is dark, bloody and violent. I want to get out, escape… but Shay has other plans for me.What do you do when your protector becomes the very root of your torment?**Warning: This book is meant for mature readers, 18+.Torment Part One is a dark romance and contains scenes and situations that may be upsetting for some readers. Includes several triggers and sensitive material such as: domestic abuse, profanity, gang violence, PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders, and sexual assault.Please do not read if you are uncomfortable with any of the above. Thank you.

The Education of Sebastian


Jane Harvey-Berrick - 2012
    When her husband finally wins a long sought-after promotion, Caroline feels she has little choice but to follow him to a new home in San Diego. There she meets Sebastian, a young man of 17. For an all too brief summer, their happiness blooms. But external pressures begin to bear down, not least from the overbearing David, and Sebastian’s parents begin to suspect that their son has a secret. Even Caroline’s new friend, Donna, realises that dark passions exist below the serene surface.

Spinning Out


Lexi Ryan - 2016
    I had it all, and I threw it away with a semester of drugs, alcohol, and pissing off anyone who tried to stop me. Now I’m suspended from the team, on house arrest, and forced to spend a semester at home to get my shit together. The cherry on my fuckup sundae? Sleeping in the room next to mine is my best friend’s girl, Mia Mendez—the only woman I’ve ever loved and a reminder of everything I regret.I’m not sure if having Mia so close will be heaven or hell. She’s off-limits—and not just because she’s working for my dad. Her heart belongs to someone else. But since the accident that killed her brother and changed everything, she walks around like a zombie, shutting out her friends and ignoring her dreams. We’re both broken, numb, and stuck in limbo.Until I break my own rules and touch her. Until she saves me from my nightmares by climbing into my bed. Until the only thing I want more than having Mia for myself is to protect her from the truth. I can’t rewrite the past, but I refuse to leave her heart in the hands of fate. For this girl, I’d climb into the sky and rearrange the stars.SPINNING OUT is a sexy, emotional novel of 100,000 words. It is first in the Blackhawk Boys, a series of standalone novels.

Butterfly Weeds


Laura Miller - 2012
    But she should have known better. Her past haunted her every chance it got these days, and tonight it came in the form of lyrics she never expected to hear again—not after a decade, not in the arms of another man and definitely not in the form of a confession. Now, Julia must discover for herself if the song—and more importantly, the man behind it—is enough to leave her new life for her small-town, Missouri roots and a second chance at love.

Better When He's Bad


Jay Crownover - 2014
    . . meet Shane Baxter. Sexy, dark, and dangerous, Bax isn’t just from the wrong side of the tracks, he is the wrong side of the tracks. A criminal, a thug, and a brawler, he’s the master of bad choices, until one such choice landed him in prison for five years. Now Bax is out and looking for answers, and he doesn’t care what he has to do or who he has to hurt to get them. But there’s a new player in the game, and she’s much too innocent, much too soft…and standing directly in his way. Dovie Pryce knows all about living a hard life and the tough choices that come with it. She’s always tried to be good, tried to help others, and tried not to let the darkness pull her down. But the streets are fighting back, things have gone from bad to worse, and the only person who can help her is the scariest, sexiest, most complicated ex-con The Point has ever produced. Bax terrifies her, but it doesn’t take Dovie long to realize that some boys are just better when they’re bad.

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.

Swear on This Life


Renee Carlino - 2016
    As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer.Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.That’s because the novel is patterned on Emiline’s own dark and desperate childhood, which means that “J. Colby” must be Jase: the best friend and first love she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Far from being flattered that he wrote the novel from her perspective, Emiline is furious that he co-opted her painful past and took some dramatic creative liberties with the ending.The only way she can put her mind at ease is to find and confront “J. Colby,” but is she prepared to learn the truth behind the fiction?

Gabriel's Inferno


Sylvain Reynard - 2011
    He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love and redemption, "Gabriel's Inferno" is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man's escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible...forgiveness and love.

Sometimes Never


Cheryl McIntyre - 2012
    She’s content with her current no-strings-attached extracurricular activity with the lead singer of her band. She’s never believed in love and commitment.Mason starts his eighth school in five years anticipating nothing more than the usual—boring classes, fighting more than making friends, and girls happily willing to succumb to his easy smile. He’s never put much stock into love at first sight—until he sees her.Regardless of their painful pasts, Hope and Mason discover that sometimes never can become forever. *This is a mature young adult. Recommended for 17+ due to sensitive subject material, harsh language, and sexual situations.

Anti-Stepbrother


Tijan - 2016
    I labeled him an *sshole, but he was more than that. Arrogant. Smug. Alpha. He was also to-die-for gorgeous, and my stepbrother’s fraternity brother. Okay, yes I was a little naive, a tad bit socially awkward, and the smallest amount of stalker-ish, but if Caden Banks thought he could tell me what to do, he had another thing coming. I came to college with daydreams about being with my stepbrother, but what if I fell for the anti-stepbrother instead?

Come Back to Me


Mila Gray - 2014
    Jessa's finally following her dreams and Kit's discovered there's someone he'd sacrifice everything for.Jessa's prepared to wait for Kit no matter what. But when something more than distance and time rips them apart they're forced to decide whether what they have is really worth fighting for.

Asking for It


Lilah Pace - 2015
    This is what I want. Now I need a man dangerous enough to give it to me.” Graduate student Vivienne Charles is afraid of her own desires—ashamed to admit that she fantasizes about being taken by force, by a man who will claim her completely and without mercy. When the magnetic, mysterious Jonah Marks learns her secret, he makes an offer that stuns her: they will remain near-strangers to each other, and meet in secret so that he can fulfill her fantasy.Their arrangement is twisted. The sex is incredible. And—despite their attempts to stay apart—soon their emotions are bound together as tightly as the rope around Vivienne’s wrists. But the secrets in their pasts threaten to turn their affair even darker...Reader Advisory: Asking for It deals explicitly with fantasies of non-consensual sex. Readers sensitive to portrayals of non-consensual sex should be advised.

Off the Record


K.A. Linde - 2014
    Brady Maxwell may have everything it takes to be a politician—a winning pedigree, devastating good looks, a body made to wear suits—but his politics rub Liz the wrong way. When Liz’s hard-hitting question catches the upstart senator off-guard, it impresses Hayden Lane, Liz’s editor who feels she’s headed for a promising career as a reporter.But Liz is also headed into a secret romance with Brady that could destroy both their ambitions. Though he’s a bachelor, potential voters might frown on Brady cozying up to a reporter. And Liz isn’t sure sneaking around is enough for her—especially when things between her and Hayden might be less platonic than she thought.Sleek, sexy, and smart, Off the Record ventures into a high-stakes campaign and an even higher-stakes affair to answer the question: When politics and love collide, can there ever be a winner?

Credence


Penelope DouglasPenelope Douglas - 2020
    The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she’s grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. Shipped off to boarding schools from an early age, it was still impossible to escape the loneliness and carve out a life of her own. The shadow of her parents’ fame followed her everywhere.And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She’s always been alone, hasn’t she?Jake Van der Berg, her father’s stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan who is still two months shy of eighteen. Sent to live with him and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, in the mountains of Colorado, Tiernan soon learns that these men now have a say in what she chooses to care and not care about anymore. As the three of them take her under their wing, teach her to work and survive in the remote woods far away from the rest of the world, she slowly finds her place among them.And as a part of them.She also realizes that lines blur and rules become easy to break when no one else is watching.One of them has her.The other one wants her.But he…He’s going to keep her.*Credence is a new adult standalone novel suitable for readers 18+.