Book picks similar to
Scarred Beautiful by Beth Michele


new-adult
romance
stand-alone
contemporary-romance

Ten Below Zero


Whitney Barbetti - 2014
    And you’re closer to death than I am.”My name is Parker. My body is marked with scars from an attack I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I choose to live my life by observation, not through experience. While people are laughing and kissing and connecting, I’m in the corner. Watching them live. I’m indifferent to everything, everyone. The only emotion I feel with any kind of depth is annoyance, and I feel it often.A text message sent to the wrong number proves to be my undoing.His name is Everett, but I call him rude. He’s pushy, he’s arrogant, he crowds my personal space, and worst of all: he makes me feel.He chooses to wear all black, all the time, as if he’s waiting to attend a funeral. Probably because he is.Everett is dying. And he’s spending his final days living, truly living. In doing so, he’s forcing me to feel, to heal. To come face to face with the demons I suppressed in my memory.He hurts me, he fulfills me, he completes me. And still, he's dying.

If You Stay


Courtney Cole - 1999
    Seriously. He’s a tattooed, rock-hard bad-boy with a bad attitude to match. But he’s got his reasons. His mother died when Pax was seven, leaving a hole in his heart filled with guilt although he doesn’t understand why. What he does know is that he and his dad are left alone and with more issues than they can count. As Pax grew up, he tried to be the kid his father always wanted; the perfect golden boy, but it didn’t work. His dad couldn’t overcome his grief long enough to notice and Pax couldn’t keep up the impossible perfect façade. So he slipped far, far from it. Now, he uses drugs and women to cope with the ugliness, the black void that he doesn’t want to deal with. If he pretends that the emptiness isn’t there, then it isn’t, right? Wrong. And it’s never more apparent than when he meets Mila. Sweet, beautiful Mila Hill is the fresh air to his hardened frown, the beauty to his ugly heart. He doesn’t know how to not hurt her, but he quickly realizes that he’s got to figure it out because he needs her to breathe.When memories of his mother’s death resurface from where he’s repressed them for so long, Mila is there to catch him when the guilt starts making sense. Mila is the one…the one who can save him from his broken troubled heart; from his issues, from the emptiness. But only if he can stop being an asshole long enough to allow it. He knows that. And he’s working on it. But is that enough to make her stay?

Beautifully Insightful


K.C. Lynn - 2015
    I see the world differently than everyone else, I feel everything differently and I reflect on life differently. And being different in my world is not a good thing.I live in a place that’s divided between the rich and the poor, the beautiful and the unbeautiful, the prestigious and the mediocre. I have always belonged in the first category, because my father was the Governor of Georgia. Growing up around people I could never relate with, my life had always been lonely, that was until my senior year when I met the one boy who would change my life forever. A boy who my parents would never approve of because he didn’t come from money or the same social class. He rode a motorcycle, had tattoos and was considered to be from the wrong side of the tracks. Yet he was still envied by many.Ryder Jameson was someone who every guy feared, and one who every girl wanted to be touched by. He didn’t do attachments, or have friends… until me. And for the first time in my life I finally felt like I belonged. When I was with him, my different didn’t feel wrong or ugly. He made me feel beautiful- insightfully beautiful. Then one day my world came crashing down on me, and it would be six years before I'd once again see the boy I fell in love with.RYDER JAMESON ~ After working my ass off I am given the opportunity of a lifetime, and if I pull it off I will be the youngest FBI agent to run one of the biggest undercover operations in history. Only the case that gets thrown in front of me leads me back to the one place I swore I would never return to, and to the only girl who’s ever mattered to me. Except Emily Michaels is not the same girl I left behind. She still looks the same, she’s still beautiful inside and out, but there’s one thing that’s very different about her, one very big thing, and it’s something I didn’t think was possible.Ryder and I come from a world where politics separates us and wealth defines us, but even after all this time we will not let it divide us. Here is our story.

I See London


Chanel Cleeton - 2013
    But when she accepts a scholarship to the International School in London, a university attended by the privileged offspring of diplomats and world leaders, Maggie might get more than she bargained for. When Maggie meets Hugh, a twentysomething British guy, she finds herself living the life she always wanted. Suddenly she’s riding around the city in a Ferrari, wearing borrowed designer clothes and going to the hottest clubs. The only problem? Another guy, the one she can’t seem to keep her hands off of. Half French, half Lebanese, and ridiculously wealthy, Samir Khouri has made it clear he doesn’t do relationships. He’s the opposite of everything Maggie thought she wanted…and he’s everything she can’t resist. Torn between her dream guy and the boy haunting her dreams, Maggie has to fight for her own happy ending. In a city like London, you never know where you stand, and everything can change in the blink of an eye. This is a New Adult romance recommended for readers 17 and up.

The Wrong Kind of Love


Lexi Ryan - 2018
    Or the moment your twin sister pukes on your bouquet and confesses she’s pregnant... with your fiancé’s baby.I wanted to get away, to hide until my heart mended. I found myself in a strange town with a mysterious stranger whose talented mouth and hands almost made me forget it was supposed to be my wedding night.Afraid to go home to face my broken life, I pretend to be my twin so I can take her job in Jackson Harbor caring for a six-year-old girl. Imagine my surprise when I find out my new boss is my mysterious stranger — Dr. Ethan Jackson.I never meant for Ethan to discover my secrets. I never meant for them to matter. But the longer I work with him and his sweet daughter, the harder I fall, and the clearer it becomes that I’m not the only one carrying a secret that could tear us apart.Get ready to fall for the boys of Jackson Harbor in Lexi Ryan’s sexy new contemporary romance series. These books can all be read as standalones, but you’ll enjoy reading them as a series!

A Long Goodbye


Kelly Mooney - 2013
    Ashton is tired of being told she's perfect, and tired of pretending to be someone she isn't. She wants to reinvent herself, if only for a short time and she hopes Nashville is the place to do it. Preferably with a smooth talking cowboy. With no one watching her every move, or so she thinks, Ashton finds the one person who finally sees her for the woman she wants to be. Dane Woods has just come home from fighting overseas after losing his best friend. Everyone, including himself expects him to reenlist for another tour, but he can't break a promise he made to his dying friend. The last thing Dane has on his mind while tailing a Southern Princess like Ashton Winslow is falling in love. She's supposed to be two week job, but it turns into so much more. Will Dane risk everything to be with Ashton or will his lies and betrayal destroy her love for him?

Dirty Rich One Night Stand


Lisa Renee Jones - 2017
    Her. Him. Pleasure. And then a fast goodbye. He's a stranger. And yet, he's not. She knows him even though he doesn’t know her.He's the powerful attorney, now world-renowned after coming off the trial of a century which was publicized across the country. And I'm one of the reporters that sat in his courtroom.I watched him, studied him, got to know him from afar which isn't hard since I know his exact brand of confidence, arrogance, and wealth.I know his type. I've dated his type. Which is why when I happen to come face to face with him, when sparks fly and heat simmers between us, I know what happens if I say "yes" to Reese Summer. I know he'll taste like sin and sex, even before he kisses me.I know he'll feel like pleasure and passion, even before he touches me.I know he'll demand more than I want to give, and yet, because I dare to give myself to him, the result will be deliciously hot.I know that I will not leave his bed without being utterly, completely sated. And I know that I will leave the next morning anyway.And so, I do. And so, he follows.And as chase begins my question becomes: Is Reese Summer THE one or is he really just a dirty, arrogant lie that should have stayed a one night stand?