Book picks similar to
Risk by Marissa Holan


new-adult
college
romance
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Down to Business


J.C. Alexander - 2013
    Two years later when a scholarship at Adelphi University comes her way, she can't resist the chance to start a new life. The one thing that she isn't planning on...is falling for irresistible Vinny Mazzola. To outsiders, Hamptons born Vinny Mazzola has it all: good looks, money, and an esteemed reputation. While studying business at Adelphi, the last thing he expects to do is fall in love with awkward Autumn Malone who forces him to ask himself what's really important in life. When the opportunity arises for Autumn to work at Vinny's family-owned Italian restaurant, Mazzolas, it seems like a perfect way for her to get to know him better. That is until she meets his over protective mother and his conceited ex-girlfriend who both want nothing more than to get rid of her. Between frats, family, friends, and foes, when it comes down to business, will Vinny and Autumn have to sacrifice everything for a love they can't live without?

Summer's Desire


Olivia Lynde - 2013
    In each other, they find a safe haven... and respite from the darkness haunting them both. Until they are betrayed.Can they ever regain their friendship? And if they do, can they trust each other enough to take the biggest risk of all: falling in love?Genre: Mature YA/New Adult, Romance

Beneath Our Faults


Charity Ferrell - 2014
    Unable to cope with her loss, she's forced to move thousands of miles away. The last thing she expects to find when arriving in her new home is her neighbor, naked and in a very compromising situation. Keegan Montgomery never had to answer to anyone for anything. His life consisted of partying and frequenting as many beds as he could throw himself into. But under his bad boy facade, he is facing his own internal demons. Daisy will never love another. Keegan knows he'll never love anyone - ever. But their attraction is undeniable. Can the tragic ending of a first love end up being the beginning of another?

Calling California


J.P. Grider - 2014
    She has a lot on her plate - her father is dying, she's working to help pay the rent, and she's two-years behind in college.Griffin Brooks is rich. He has not a care in the world - he's acing his engineering courses, his hobby is restoring his fifty-thousand dollar classic car, and he has a different girl on his arm every week.When Cali sees Griffin on her first day of class, she's immediately smitten and thinks she's found the perfect guy. When Griffin sees Cali at the bank, he immediately forgets the blonde he was with that morning. Then they meet, and their worlds collide.Cali doesn't belong in Griffin’s world, and he doesn't understand hers. But just when Griffin convinces Cali that their two different worlds can blend, a secret is revealed that tears them apart.Is their love strong enough to bring them back together, or will their worlds drift further apart?

The Forbidden Man


Elle Wright - 2015
    But his latest betrayal just days before their wedding is too big to ignore. Shocking her friends and family, she calls off the engagement. She walks out on Den . . . and into the arms of his brother, Morgan.Known as a player, Morgan Smith has secretly spent years fighting his feelings for Sydney. When Den's latest dirty deed leaves Sydney devastated, Morgan can't stop himself from coming to her rescue. What begins as friendship quickly escalates into all-consuming passion. Despite their intense connection, Sydney would rather deny her desire than come between brothers. But as Morgan is determined to make Sydney his, Den won't give her up without a fight . . .

A Love So Wrong: A Forbidden Romance


Katerina Winters - 2020
    Mr. Perfect, who gave out gleaming smiles and wicked winks--and he was Jade's hero. From the moment she met him, they had been inseparable. For Jade, Gideon was everything: he was her self-proclaimed protector, her best friend, and her family.Living in a beautiful, sleepy town by the ocean surrounded by family and friends, their sparkling futures were all mapped out. She would graduate high school and attend the same college as him, and maybe one day, she would even get over her secret crush. For now, though, life was simply perfect, and Jade was content to dream.But everyone knows perfect things never last.Cast from the only place they had ever called home, Jade and Gideon Lattimore are forced to downsize their lives into seventy-seven inches of their recently deceased father's semi-truck. Together they travel across the US, taking every paying load they can in hopes of planning out a new future. With every mile passed, tensions begin to build, and unspoken feelings between them begin to rise to the surface, daring the other to acknowledge them first.But one poor decision comes crashing through their fragile existence, and it may just cost them their lives--or it just may make their forbidden dreams come true.**Author's note: A Love So Wrong is a standalone forbidden romance set in my new town of Stardust Cove. Containing steamy stepbrother themes and a dash of dark romantic suspense, this forbidden love story is intended for mature audiences. This book contains no cheating and no cliffhangers, voyeurism and a guaranteed HEA.

Lily of the Valley


Sarah Daltry - 2013
    If dirty talk, bedroom toys, and threesomes offend you... this is not your book. There are also no billionaires, strippers, or virgins. This is just the story of typical college kids trying to connect to each other. "No one tells you about pain. They tell you that it hurts, that sometimes it's consuming. What they don't tell you is that it's not the pain that can kill you. It's the uncomfortable numbness that follows, the weakness in your body when you realize your lungs may stop taking in air and you just can't exert enough energy to care. It's the way taste and color and smell fade from the world and all you're left with is a sepia print of misery. That's when the shift starts - the movement from passive to active. I fall asleep, hoping that the morning will bring back the pain. At least the pain is a thing."Plagued by a dark past, Jack sees college as a way out. Desperate to escape the area where he grew up, the people who know his secrets, and his own family, he deals with his problems through alcohol and meaningless sex. When he first sees Lily, she's the epitome of everything he hates. Yet something about her makes Jack rethink everything he knows and assumes about other people. Now, with the help of his best friend and lover, Jack has to decide if he wants to pursue something that he knows will only end badly.Can Lily be one of the few people who can see Jack for who he really is - or will his darkness be too much for her to handle?

How We Lived


Erin Butler - 2014
    She just wanted to wear jeans and a T-shirt—the clothes Kyle would’ve wanted her in—not wrap herself up in death. So she watched the funeral from afar, like an outsider. Which is just how she feels.Chase came, though, just like she knew he would. Until a few months ago, the three of them had been best friends, and then Chase made a mistake that shattered both families. But when Kelsey looks at him, she doesn’t see her brother’s killer. She sees the boy next door who’s always taken care of her. She sees home. When Chase tells her his feelings run deeper than friendship, she can’t help but get lost in him. In Chase, she finally has the closure she’s been unable to find anywhere else. But the boy she’s falling in love with is still hiding secrets about the night Kyle died. Secrets that could destroy everything they have…again.standalone

Chasing After Infinity


L. Jayne - 2012
    My back hits the wall hard, enough to make my ears ring. His body pushes into mine, trapping me between his hands and the bricks. His breathing is uneven, his light breath stirring my hair. I wait for the eventual kiss, the moment where his lips meet mine hard and rough but he doesn’t do anything. A lump is in my throat. “Either kiss me or let me go,” I choke out. The same old tug of war is still raging and there’s nothing but a storm between us.Ever since her mother’s death, Avena’s heart has become steel—tough, hardened…unbreakable. She refuses to let anything faze her; least of all, the school’s most notorious player, Adrian Huntington, with his jade eyes and aloof, sardonic charm that has all the girls swooning in his wake. When she becomes his next target, everything goes up in flames as they find themselves getting caught up in the game they created.

Never Let Go


Scarlett Edwards - 2013
    I go and screw mine up by meeting the most gorgeous guy I've seen in five years while talking to my cat. But Andrew Crowner is far from judgmental. By the end of our interaction, he has me smitten by his easy manner and kind smile. And from the way his eyes linger on me before he leaves, I start to think that maybe I’ve caught his attention, too. I let myself believe that luck may finally be on my side. That is, until I stumble on my roommate, and her overnight guest: Spencer Ashford. Lean, tattooed, and sexy as sin, Spencer is exactly the type I need to avoid. I would have no trouble with that... were it not for his swift and inexplicable interest in me. Suddenly, I go from a girl with next-to-no experience with boys to one caught in the crosshairs of two completely different men. Andrew's interest is wholesome and sweet. Spencer's is edgy and raw. My choice should be easy. But there are always complications, and sometimes, matters of the heart take the least expected turns.

Hawk and Dove


Amanda Lawless - 2013
    She's read the gossip blogs about his countless bimbo girlfriends, his bad behavior, his addictions. But the moment she meets him in the flesh, all of those impressions slip away. He seethes of raw sex appeal and cockiness, just the kind of guy Ellie has learned to stay away from. But how can the media's version of this sex god be true? Will he let her in, past the rock star millionaire bad boy, to find the real Trent Parker, the man? Ellie's world is about to get rocked and she has no idea how hard.

For Nicky


A.D. Ellis - 2014
    Elizabeth Decker views herself as shy, totally average, and pretty much insignificant. She’s nothing special, at least not compared to her little sister, Audrey. Elizabeth is content with her plain and lonely future; she’s too insecure to contemplate a relationship thanks to her sister. Audrey is a bombshell and uses this to get what she wants. She’s a girl who will stop at nothing to control anyone and everything around her. She craves power and doesn’t care if she has to hurt Elizabeth to get it. Nathaniel Morgan has spent his whole life fighting for his twin brother, Nicholas. Somewhere along the way, he lost himself. Now he’s just getting by. He’s devoted to his family, but emotionally detached from the women he burns through like wildfire. He has no plans of getting into something as complicated and committed as a “relationship”. Nicholas Morgan has placed the new librarian, Miss Elizabeth, on a pedestal and is begging her to meet his twin brother, Nathaniel. Elizabeth and Nathaniel agree to meet, for Nicky. Both are caught off-guard when unexpected sparks fly between them. This was not in their plans. Will Nathaniel and Elizabeth be able to escape a past that still plagues them? Or, will the past, suspicions, and insecurities come between them one too many times?**This is a contemporary new adult romance. It should only be read by ages 18+ due to adult themes and situations. This is a stand alone book.

Escaping Heartbreak


Regina Bartley - 2014
    Since she was fifteen she has taken care of everyone but herself, including her older brother Dane. She has been lying to herself to keep from feeling the pain of her parent’s death. Now she is twenty and she’s ready to start a life of her own. Moving into her parent’s lake house would be the perfect escape. Wouldn’t it? That’s what she thought. Only, it led her right into the emotional place she’s been hiding from all this time. All of those years of running from her feelings, she now has to face them. It’s too much. She can’t deal with it alone. Someone has to help. She’ll do anything to escape the heartbreak, but you can only run so far. Travis can’t believe his eyes; his half-opened, blood shot eyes. Sawyer Evans was in the flesh and standing over him. He hadn’t seen this girl since he was ten years old. Travis only saw the Evan’s during the summer when they moved into the lake house. He and Dane were best friends. When Dane invited him and the old gang to a welcome back party at the Lake House, he couldn’t wait to go. It turns out getting wasted was only half the fun. Seeing Sawyer was the other half. She was the sexiest girl he’d ever seen and he was going to make sure that she knew it. Only she shot him down time and time again. He’s determined to break down those walls and get inside her head, but he’ll have to be sober to do it, and no matter how hard he tries, she’ll always run. He can’t keep chasing her. He has to figure out a way to make her stay. It’s time to stop running, stop hiding, and start learning where the true escape lies. Everyone will face heartbreak, but not everyone will find love. Stand Alone Novel for ages 18+ due to graphic language, and sexual content.

Striking


Lila Felix - 2013
    The worst part, her parents are following through on threats after this latest plea for attention. Banished from her L.A. paradise and plunged into the Appalachian Mountains with her industrious aunt and uncle, Cami is about to find out how precious life really is. Stockton Wright has been thrust into a hard life. He sacrifices everything to give his family and community what they need. He’s exhausted from life and work—and he’s only twenty four. What he needs is some change, and some sunshine. Even he will agree to that. He just doesn’t expect to find it in a stuck up, pompous, entitled Californian. Cami bursts into Stockton’s life like wildfire, consuming all his thoughts and tangling him in her web. What starts out as a contentious rivalry evolves into a desire neither of them expected. When hammer meets metal, will they crack under pressure or be forged as one?Cami and Stockton might just end up being exactly what the other one needs, but first their love will have to be drawn out in fire.

Forever With You


Renae Kelleigh - 2013
    Dating boys, or even just KISSING them, was something I simply hadn't gotten around to. And honestly, even after finally leaving home, jumping into some version of romance still wasn't among my top priorities. That was, of course, before Kyle Freeman came back into my life. His idea of a relationship may not exactly align with mine, but we can work around that, right? For the first time, I'm giving some serious thought to breaking a few of my unspoken rules...KYLEI'm sure there are a lot of viable theories that could explain the root cause of my aversion to relationships (aside from the Biblical variety, that is). Too bad I've never had much interest in exploring the why's and how's of that particular aspect of my psyche. But then came Tawny Read. Now, suddenly, I have much bigger concerns than which parties are likely to have the highest girl-to-guy ratios - like convincing Tawny that I'm capable of being good enough for her, for example...Contains mature adult themes, including strong language and explicit sexuality.