Book picks similar to
Pure of Heart by Danielle Parker


fantasy
paranormal
lesbian
urban-fantasy

The Sting of Victory


S.D. Simper - 2018
    The sting of victory will fade with time.”Haunted by a history of horror and abuse, Flowridia, a witch with a tender heart, finds a second chance in the home of her kingdom’s royal family. With employment comes friendship, and perhaps she has finally found a place to belong—until she catches the eye of Lady Ayla Darkleaf, a woman with enticing grace and a predatory smile. The corrupt world of politics consumes her, and Flowridia falls into a toxic love affair surely doomed for heartbreak. Yet when Ayla’s legacy as a monster unfolds, Flowridia sees only the tender soul hiding beneath.An ancient deity returns, hell-bent on restoring the world to its natural order, and Flowridia’s kingdom is tasked to stop him. Caught in the ensuing clash of gods, her loyalties will be tempted at every turn—by family, by fate, and by the woman whose claws grip her heart.Horror abounds, monsters rise, and hearts break in the first installment of FALLEN GODS

The Queen’s Garden Mage


Briana Bates - 2016
    Nearly every member of the Council is against her, the people do not favor her and the only people she has in her corner are her mother, her sister and a group of Garden Mages who would do anything the Queen asks. Except Rhyme that is. Rhyme has worked as one of the Queen’s Gardeners for much of her life. She has more power than most people think and knows more than she lets on. Despite her dislike of the Heir’s mother, the current Queen of Angileri she knows what's best for the people. Rhyme knows Adri will make a great ruler...that is if she gets the chance. Rhyme and her fellow Gardeners will have to use every skill they possess to ensure that this unlikely monarch gets the chance to sit the throne.

Always Faithful


Isabella - 2010
    She is left alone to wonder why she and she alone. Survivor's guilt has nothing on the young Major as she is forced to deal with the scars, both physical and mental, left from her ordeal overseas. Before the accident, she couldn't think of doing anything else in her life. In fact, she even had sacrificed love for service, but now she questions the very ideals she once believed in. Was it worth it? Sent Stateside to recover, she finds herself at the Marine Corps base in California where her new job is to inform families of a loved one's death. One of the "informs" will change her life forever. Claire Monroe is your average military wife, with a loving husband and a little girl. She is used to the time apart from her husband. In fact, it was one of the reasons she married him. Then, one day, her life is turned upside down when she gets a visit from the Marine Corps. She finds herself losing a husband but awakening a long-gone side of herself she never thought she would see again. Is she being disrespectful to the memory of her recently dead husband or is she finally being true to who she really is? Can these two women come to terms with the past and finally find happiness, or will their shared sense of honor keep them apart?

River Walker


Cate Culpepper - 2010
    Grady Wrenn is a cultural anthropologist, enthralled by a local ghost story about a vengeful spirit known as the River Walker. Elena Montalvo, a spiritual healer, is that tortured spirit’s only defender. Together, Grady and Elena must find a way to end the River Walker’s murderous vendetta— and overcome a maze of cultural barriers to find each other.

The Sea Hawk


Brenda Adcock - 2008
    Julia Blanchard, a marine archaeologist, and her team of divers have spent almost eighteen months excavating the remains of a ship found a few miles off the coast of Georgia. Although they learn quite a bit about the nineteenth century sailing vessel, they have found nothing that would reveal the identity of the ship they have nicknamed "The Georgia Peach." Consumed by the excavation of the mysterious ship, Julia's relationship with her partner, Amy, has deteriorated. When she forgets Amy's birthday and finds her celebrating in the arms of another woman, Julia returns alone to the Peach site. Caught in a violent storm, she finds herself separated from her boat and adrift on the vast Atlantic Ocean. Her rescue at sea leads her on an unexpected journey into the true identity of the Peach and the captain and crew who called it their home. Her travels take her to the island of Martinique, the eastern Caribbean islands, the Louisiana German Coast and New Orleans at the close of the War of 1812. How had the Peach come to rest in the waters off the Georgia coast? What had become of her alluring and enigmatic captain, Simone Moreau? Can love conquer everything, even time? On a voyage that lifts her spirits and eventually breaks her heart, Julia discovers the identity of the ship she had been excavating and the fate of its crew. Along the way she also discovers the true meaning of love which can be as boundless and unpredictable as the ocean itself.

Adijan and Her Genie


L.-J. Baker - 2008
    Shalimar, her wife, wishes Adijan would spend more time at home. Their landlord wishes Adijan would pay the rent. Adijan's brother-in-law wishes she would get trampled by a herd of camels so that he could marry his sister Shalimar to someone affluent and influential. And of all the wishes in the world, Adijan wishes the genie she's saddled with would grant her wishes instead of treating her with disdain. Be careful what you wish for in a world of genies, sorcerers, and flying carpets.

Breaking Legacies


Zoe Reed - 2016
    But when a lifelong friend with connections recommends her to the king to track down a runaway princess, her life gets turned upside down. Finding the princess is easy. Deciding what to do in a conflicting mess of politics and emotions… not so much.175,000 words

Biding Time


Lyn Gardner - 2021
    You’re born. You live, and you die, your lifespan predisposed by your species, your health, and your luck. But what if there were a species who colored outside the lines?In Back Bay, Massachusetts, dwells such a person. She goes about her life wanting nothing more than to run her business, right some wrongs, and never love again. She keeps her footprint small and her circle of acquaintances even smaller, and she’s an expert at it. So, when her neighbor, Ruby Miller, makes her interest known, it falls on ears deafened by centuries of life.Betrayal leaves scars. Imprinted on your heart and in your mind, they simmer under the surface of every hour of every day of every year, constant reminders of pain, sadness, and loss. Some handle those wounds with retaliation, paying back the hurt with hurt of their own, while others use the ache of a fractured heart like a talisman. Forever holding onto a keepsake filled with the ruins of love gone wrong, they erect walls and promise themselves they’ll never love again.Just because you deny it, doesn’t make it go away. Just because you put others in its path, doesn’t weaken its hold. And just because you’ve loved and lost countless times, doesn’t mean the right love won’t come along. Love is not ruled by the brain, but rather the heart…and even the most damaged is not immune to its sway.

Sword of the Guardian


Merry Shannon - 2006
    But in the midst of a birthday celebration, her world shatters when a mysterious assassin takes her brother's life. Shasta, the only remaining heir to the throne, narrowly escapes the assassin's blade thanks to the intervention of a traveling acrobat named Talon.With the threat of another attempt on Shasta's life imminent, her father declares that the young hero will be come the Princess's bodyguard. But what Shasta doesn't know is that her new guardian has a very well-kept secret: he is actually a she.Talon and Shasta soon grow closer than anyone, especially her father, could have predicted. Will the truth of her guardian's secret change their relationship forever?Book 1 of The Legends of Ithyria Series

Colorblind


Siera Maley - 2016
    and it’s not that she likes girls. She has a rare and special gift: she can see how old other people will be when they pass away. Nothing she does changes this number, and that becomes especially clear when her mother dies in a car crash. With only one other person in the world who knows about and shares her gift, Harper is determined to keep her distance from everyone. Then she falls for Chloe… whose number is 16.That means that Chloe doesn’t have twelve months to live. She doesn’t even have six.She is going to be dead by the end of the summer, unless Harper can find a way to stop it.

Santa Olivia


Jacqueline Carey - 2009
    Loup Garron was born and raised in Santa Olivia, an isolated, disenfranchised town next to a US military base inside a DMZ buffer zone between Texas and Mexico. A fugitive "Wolf-Man" who had a love affair with a local woman, Loup's father was one of a group of men genetically-manipulated and used by the US government as a weapon. The "Wolf-Men" were engineered to have superhuman strength, speed, sensory capability, stamina, and a total lack of fear, and Loup, named for and sharing her father's wolf-like qualities, is marked as an outsider. After her mother dies, Loup goes to live among the misfit orphans at the parish church, where they seethe from the injustices visited upon the locals by the soldiers. Eventually, the orphans find an outlet for their frustrations: They form a vigilante group to support Loup Garron who, costumed as their patron saint, Santa Olivia, uses her special abilities to avenge the town. Aware that she could lose her freedom, and possibly her life, Loup is determined to fight to redress the wrongs her community has suffered. And like the reincarnation of their patron saint, she will bring hope to all of Santa Olivia.

Sailing With Her Wolf


Ariel Marie - 2020
    Their friendship dated back to their sophomore year in high school. Throughout the years they had been glued to each other's hip, experiencing life together. When Zara broke up with her longtime boyfriend, Marley suggested a three-week girls trip, sailing the Pacific Ocean. It would help her friend clear her mind and celebrate her newly found single life. Marley had spent the last fourteen years of her life, knowing they'd only ever be friends. Her wolf had identified Zara as her mate the day they'd met. The urge to mate was strong, but she was always able to overcome it, knowing she'd rather have Zara in her life as a friend, then not at all. After setting sail with Tahiti as their destination, an intense storm caught them off guard damaging their yacht. Floating aimlessly along in the ocean, Marley is determined to ensure their survival. With life or death situations at every turn, will Marley be able to protect Zara while resisting the call to mate?

NoX


Adrienne Wilder - 2019
    He can't even tell Luca his name.He remembers nothing until the moment he sees Luca.The only hint Luca has to the stranger's identity is a tattoo on his wrist: N o XNox doesn't know who he is, but he's sure of three things, his memory loss is temporary, the monsters chasing Luca are called Anubis, and his Alpha, Koda, sent Nox to protect him.There's just one problem… Koda is Luca's brother who was murdered five years ago.With each passing hour, Nox fills in the pieces painting an impossible truth. And with each passing hour, both men find themselves unexplainably attracted to each other.Something Luca is willing to embrace because he has nothing left to lose.And one Nox can't let happen because it could get Luca killed.Nox is an HEA/HFN M/M paranormal, science-fiction romance.But be warned, these are NOT the shifters you are used to reading about.

Terrible Praise


Lara Hayes - 2018
    But in the last century her family has built a permanent residence in the abandoned freight tunnels beneath Chicago, where anonymity reigns supreme.Navigating the modern world is not easy and Stela, once a fierce warrior, has traded the heat of battle for petty negotiation, her sword for a pen, and her station as Fane’s enforcer to now serve as her family’s financial liaison.When a late meeting forces Stela to visit a nearby hospital, she crosses paths with the beguiling Elizabeth Dumas—a brilliant nurse who sacrificed her academic career to care for her ailing mother. Their charged encounter will threaten the secrecy Stela has sworn to uphold, and the bond they unwittingly forge will irrevocably alter both their lives.Worlds collide and entwine in Terrible Praise, Book One of the The Redamancy Series.Genre: Paranormal

Under Her Spell


Elora Bishop - 2013
    Run out of the last few towns for spells gone wrong, she's ready to settle down but can't quite find a place to call home. Fortunately, there's one town where her mediocrity might not actually be a problem... The charming little town of Benevolence, high in the peaks of Glimmer Mountain, a storybook little village that looks picturesque and practically perfect in every way...But there's more to Benevolence than meets the eye. The town itself is full of magic...and secrets, and not all are welcome. Outcast shapeshifter, Emily, lives alone in the mountains. She is a mystery to Isabella, until they happen upon each other by chance in the snowy wood, like magic. Love begins to grow between the two women, despite the chill of the winter and the possibility that all might not be right in Benevolence...Set in Bridget Essex's beloved fantastical world featured in A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER, UNDER HER SPELL is a charming, stand alone adventure about a mediocre witch, a gorgeous shapeshifter, and a magical love story that will warm your heart.