Book picks similar to
Better Off by Yesenia Vargas
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A Safe Space
E.M. Tippetts - 2014
For Lizzie Warner, that space has always been in front of the camera on her hit show, or on stage to a sold out concert arena. Since before she can remember, she’s been a star, but that may be about to change. She’s nineteen. Her show has been cancelled and now she’s going to play the lead in a new prime time drama series, but is the world ready to take her seriously, or will she be typecast as the cute tween queen forever? Her network has decided to be aggressive and has invested millions of dollars in an ad campaign for her show, money she’s not sure she can earn back. Her co-star can’t stand her, and the writing for the show turns out to be poor at best. The only reason Lizzie didn’t walk away from the job offer to begin with is because she’s broke, the victim of a decade of bad money management. Then there’s Devon, the personal trainer at her gym. Arrogant and abrasive, he’s the last guy she should ever find attractive, but she has a hopeless crush on him anyway, and he doesn’t seem entirely disinterested either. In fact, sometimes he’s downright sweet to her. If only he weren’t an untamable bad boy who uses and dumps women like they’re nothing. Though Lizzie’s friends warn her to stay away, he’s the only person who can create what she needs: a safe space. But is there any way she can break him of his years' long habit of being a user?
Blade of Secrets
Tricia Levenseller - 2021
She spends her days tucked away in her forge, safe from society and the anxiety it causes her, using her magical gift to craft unique weapons imbued with power.Then Ziva receives a commission from a powerful warlord, and the result is a sword capable of stealing its victims' secrets. A sword that can cut far deeper than the length of its blade. A sword with the strength to topple kingdoms. When Ziva learns of the warlord’s intentions to use the weapon to enslave all the world under her rule, she takes her sister and flees.Joined by a distractingly handsome mercenary and a young scholar with extensive knowledge of the world's known magics, Ziva and her sister set out on a quest to keep the sword safe until they can find a worthy wielder or a way to destroy it entirely.A teenage blacksmith with social anxiety accepts a commission from the wrong person and is forced to go on the run to protect the world from the most powerful magical sword she's ever made.
This Winter
Alice Oseman - 2015
I’m going to block it all out. Just for today."Happy Christmas," I say.The festive season isn't always happy for Tori and her brother Charlie. And this year's going to be harder than most.
The One We Fell in Love With
Paige Toon - 2016
Settle down and get married, or return to the French Alps to pursue her passion? Eliza is in love with someone who is no longer hers. In fact, he probably never was… And her dream of becoming a musician seems to be spiralling down the drain. Rose is out of a job and out of a boyfriend. To make matters worse, she’s been forced to move back in with her mother… But these very different girls have one thing in common. Angus. The one they fell in love with…
My Bossy Protector: A Best Friend’s Brother Romance (My Hungry Boss Book 3)
Charlize Starr - 2018
Ivy My life wasn’t supposed to look like this. I wasn’t supposed to be stuck in this small town. So, when my best friend gets me an internship at her brother Simon’s company in California, I would be stupid to refuse. The only catch is, I’d never quite gotten over the kiss he and I shared on my nineteenth birthday. The day before he skipped town. But he’s my boss now. And even though that dimpled smile still gets to me, I’m not going to let him break my heart again. Simon Ivy Soleman, with her strawberry blond curls, delicious pouty red lips and legs that make every man drool themselves dry. I should have forgotten her by now. She was nothing but a distant memory from a past I’d left behind in our godforsaken town. But now she’s in my office. And as much as I try to deny it, the truth is that I like having her around. Watching the way her body moves in those pencil skirts. The thing is that I’m not the only one looking. I don’t like the idea of other guys fighting over her. My need to protect her and her perfect shapely hips kicks in. But I’d left her once – had I lost my chance forever? This is a 30,000 words standalone story with a HEA. 18+ readers only.
Yolk
Mary H.K. Choi - 2021
Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters switching places and committing insurance fraud to save one of their lives.Jayne Baek is barely getting by. She shuffles through fashion school, saddled with a deadbeat boyfriend, clout-chasing friends, and a wretched eating disorder that she’s not fully ready to confront. But that’s New York City, right? At least she isn’t in Texas anymore, and is finally living in a city that feels right for her.On the other hand, her sister June is dazzlingly rich with a high-flying finance job and a massive apartment. Unlike Jayne, June has never struggled a day in her life. Until she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer.Suddenly, these estranged sisters who have nothing in common are living together. Because sisterly obligations are kind of important when one of you is dying.
The Kissing Booth
Beth Reekles - 2012
Meet Noah Flynn: badass, volatile--and a total player. And also Elle's best friend's older brother... When Elle decides to run a kissing booth for the school's Spring Carnival, she locks lips with Noah and her life is turned upside down. Her head says to keep away, but her heart wants to draw closer--this romance seems far from fairy tale and headed for heartbreak. But will Elle get her happily ever after?
The Glass Spare
Lauren DeStefano - 2017
Kept hidden from the world in order to serve as a spy for her father—whose obsession with building his empire is causing a war—Wil wants nothing more than to explore the world beyond her kingdom, if only her father would give her the chance.Until one night Wil is attacked, and she discovers a dangerous secret. Her touch turns people into gemstone. At first Wil is horrified—but as she tests its limits, she’s drawn more and more to the strange and volatile ability. When it leads to tragedy, Wil is forced to face the destructive power within her and finally leave her home to seek the truth and a cure.But finding the key to her redemption puts her in the path of a cursed prince who has his own ideas for what to do with her power.With a world on the brink of war and a power of ultimate destruction, can Wil find a way to help the kingdom that’s turned its back on her, or will she betray her past and her family forever?
The Universe of Us
Lang Leav - 2016
Lang Leav presents a completely new collection of poetry with a celestial theme in The Universe of Us.Planets, stars, and constellations feature prominently in this beautiful, original poetry collection from Lang Leav. Inspired by the wonders of the universe, the best-selling poetess writes about love and loss, hope and hurt, being lost and found. Lang's poetry encompasses the breadth of emotions we all experience and evokes universal feelings with her skillfully crafted words.
To Make Monsters Out of Girls
Amanda Lovelace - 2018
She poses the eternal question: Can you heal once you’ve been marked by a monster, or will the sun always sting?
What Comes of Eating Doughnuts With a Boy Who Plays Guitar
Nicole Campbell - 2015
That's gotten her good grades, the title of captain of her team, and the gift of being a nervous wreck most of the time. She will be spending the summer before her senior year with her best friend, Vanessa, in her tiny hometown of Gem City, Ohio. Courtney’s hoping for a chance to breathe and maybe to get a tan. What she doesn’t expect is Ethan Fisher and his guitar. She must answer the age old question, what does come of eating doughnuts with a boy who plays guitar? In her touching debut novel, Nicole Campbell delivers a perfect summer read. Readers will re-live their first relationships (the good, the bad, and the overwhelming), or imagine the spark of what the future might hold in this story full of the type of intensity only found in young love. *Alternate Cover Edition. Original ISBN: 9781514285923*
Onyx and Ivory
Mindee Arnett - 2018
It’s a title Kate Brighton inherited from her father after he tried to assassinate the high king years ago. Now Kate lives as an outcast, clinging to the fringes of society as a member of the Relay, the imperial courier service. Only those most skilled in riding and bow hunting ride for the Relay; and only the fastest survive, for when dark falls, the nightdrakes—deadly flightless dragons—come out to hunt. Fortunately, Kate has a secret edge: she is a wilder, born with magic that allows her to influence the minds of animals. But it’s this magic that she needs to keep hidden, as being a wilder is forbidden, punishable by death or exile. And it’s this magic that leads her to a caravan massacred by nightdrakes in broad daylight—the only survivor her childhood friend, her first love, the boy she swore to forget, the boy who broke her heart.The high king’s second son, Corwin Tormane, never asked to lead. Even as he waits for the uror—the once-in-a-generation ritual to decide which of the king’s children will succeed him—he knows it’s always been his brother who will assume the throne. And that’s fine by him. He’d rather spend his days away from the palace, away from the sight of his father, broken with sickness from the attempt on his life. But the peacekeeping tour Corwin is on has given him too much time to reflect upon the night he saved his father’s life—the night he condemned the would-be killer to death and lost the girl he loved. Which is why he takes it on himself to investigate rumors of unrest in one of the remote city-states, only for his caravan to be attacked—and for him to be saved by Kate.With their paths once more entangled, Kate and Corwin have to put the past behind them. The threat of drakes who attack in the daylight is only the beginning of a darker menace stirring in the kingdom—one whose origins have dire implications for Kate’s father’s attack upon the king and will thrust them into the middle of a brewing civil war in the kingdom of Rime.
Here We Are Now
Jasmine Warga - 2017
But one day, while her mother is out of the country, the famed rock star from Staring Into the Abyss shows up on her doorstep. This makes sense - kinda - because Julian Oliver is Taliah's father, even though her mother would never admit it to her.Julian asks if Taliah if she will drop everything and go with him to his hometown of Oak Falls, Indiana, to meet his father - her grandfather - who is nearing the end of his life. Taliah, torn between betraying her mother's trust and meeting the family she has never known, goes.With her best friend Harlow by her side, Taliah embarks on a three-day journey to find out everything about her 'father' and her family. But Julian isn't the father Taliah always hoped for, and revelations about her mother's past are seriously shaking her foundation. Through all these new experiences, Taliah will have to find new ways to be true to herself, honoring her past and her future.
Only When It's Us
Chloe Liese - 2020
Why she hates me, I don't know. What I do know is that Willa is the kind of chaos I don’t need in my tidy life. She’s the next generation of women’s soccer. Wild hair, wilder eyes. Bee-stung lips that should be illegal. And a temper that makes the devil seem friendly.
She’s a thorn in my side, a menacing, cantankerous, pain-in-the-ass who’s turned our Business Mathematics course into a goddamn gladiator arena. I'll leave this war zone unscathed, coming out on top…And if I have my way with that crazy-haired, ball-busting hellion, that will be in more than one sense of the word.
Willa
Rather than give me the lecture notes I missed like every other instructor I’ve had, my asshole professor tells me to get them from the silent, surly flannel-wearing mountain man sitting next to me in class. Well, I tried. And what did I get from Ryder Bergman? Ignored. What a complete lumbersexual neanderthal. Mangy beard and mangier hair. Frayed ball cap that hides his eyes. And a stubborn refusal to acknowledge my existence.
I’ve battled men before, but with Ryder, it's war. I’ll get those notes and crack that Sasquatch nut if it’s the last thing I do, then I’ll have him at my mercy. Victory will have never tasted so sweet.
Only When It’s Us is a frenemies-to-lovers, college sports romance about a women’s soccer star and her surly lumberjack lookalike classmate, complete with a matchmaking professor, juvenile pranks, and a smoking slow burn. This standalone is the first in a series of new novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.
Dear Mr. Tindle (Mail-Order Bride Ink Book 12)
Kit Morgan - 2020
What's a matchmaker to do?Mrs. Mahulda Brock had been tasked with a very important mission. Matchmaking! Not that she hadn't done a little before ...But this was different. For one, she had to find ways to bring two young people in her home town of Independence together. Finding things to make that happen wasn't easy. But with the help of her long time friends, Mercy, Martha, and Maude, she'd manage, wouldn't she? After some trial and error, she wasn't so sure. Worse, she noticed the young couple in her charge weren't the only ones bereft of love. There were others. How was she going to manage to bring together so many lonely hearts? Find out in this sweet, clean romantic romp that only Kit Morgan can deliver!