Book picks similar to
The Secret Pool by Betty Neels
betty-neels
romance
harlequin
contemporary
Coming Home
Priscilla Glenn - 2014
After discovering the man she loved had manipulated and deceived her, she refuses to even entertain the idea of a relationship. Instead, she focuses her attention on taking care of her family, a role she’s assumed since the death of her mother and the one place she knows her kindness won't be taken advantage of again. When a nostalgic trip back to her childhood home results in a chance encounter with Danny DeLuca, a smart-mouthed mechanic who’s as attractive as he is mysterious, Leah's carefully cultivated walls begin to crumble. She finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Danny, despite his unreliable behavior and mixed signals. But Danny has a secret...One that could shake Leah's already precarious foundation and bring her world crashing down around her. Suddenly, she's faced with an incredibly difficult decision--is she willing to risk everything for the chance at finding the love she's always wanted? Or are some obstacles just too big for the heart to overcome?
Surviving Raine
Shay Savage - 2013
Interacting with people isn’t his thing, and he prefers the company of a bottle of vodka, a shot glass, and maybe a whore. There’s no doubt he’s hiding from a checkered past, but he does well keeping everything to himself……until the night his schooner capsizes, and he’s stuck on a life raft with one of the passengers.Raine’s young, she’s cute, and Bastian would probably be into her if he wasn’t suffering from alcohol withdrawal. As the days pass, DTs, starvation, and dehydration become the norm. Even the most closed person starts to open up when he thinks he’s going to die, but when she realizes their traumatic pasts are connected, it’s no longer the elements that have Bastian concerned.He has no idea how he’s going to Survive Raine.
Blind Kiss
Renee Carlino - 2018
Fourteen years ago, this shop was her childhood dance studio... Now she’s a suburban housewife, dreading the moment her son departs for MIT, leaving her with an impeccably decorated McMansion and a failing marriage. She had her chance at wild, stars-in-her-eyes happiness, but that was a lifetime ago. After The Kiss. Before The Decision.The Kiss was soulful. Magical. Earth-shattering, And it was all for a free gift card. Asked to participate in a psych study that posed the question, “Can you have sexual chemistry without knowing what the other person looks like?” Penny agreed to be blindfolded, make polite conversation with a total stranger, and kiss him. She never expected The Kiss to change her life forever and introduce her to Gavin: tattooed, gorgeous, and spontaneous enough to ask her out seconds after the blindfolds came off.For a year, they danced between friendship and romance—until Penny made The Decision that forced them to settle for friendship. Now, fourteen years later, both of their lives are about to radically change—and it’s his turn to decide what will become of their once-in-a-lifetime connection."
Bet in the Dark
Rachel Higginson - 2013
And to add insult to injury, her overprotective family is suddenly clinging to her again, fighting to control every part of her life.Bad luck follows her hasty decision and when her roommate steals her identity and leaves town, Ellie is left to clean up a gigantic mess.Fin Hunter insists Ellie owes him seven thousand dollars from an online poker game and he won't stop until he collects it. Determined to keep her family out of her life, Ellie agrees to work for Fin in his illegal online poker operation. He's given her six weeks to pay off the debt.Soon sparks are flying between them and the only thing keeping her from falling for him is the debt she still owes and the money she doesn't have.At the end of those six weeks, Ellie will have to pay the mistaken debt or bet that her feelings for Fin will be worth more than the money. This book was previously titled Bet in the Dark.
Lease on Love
Falon Ballard - 2022
When one drink turns into one too many, Sadie mixes up a long-ignored dating app for a roommate-finding app and finds herself on the doorstep of Jack Thomas’s gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone. Too bad she’s more attracted to his impressive real estate than she is to the man himself. Jack, still grieving the unexpected death of his parents, has learned to find comfort in video games and movie marathons instead of friends. So while he doesn’t know just what to make of the vivaciously verbose Sadie, he’s willing to offer her his spare bedroom while she gets back on her feet. And with the rent unbeatably low, Sadie can finally pursue her floristry side hustle full-time. The two are polar opposites, but as Sadie’s presence begins to turn the brownstone into a home, they both start to realize they may have just made the deal of a lifetime.
Time Fuse
Penny Jordan - 1985
And made no secret of his contempt for her. But neither could he hide his desire. Selina found the aggravating man increasingly difficult to resist. But was Piers's expert seduction of her only a means to get her to confess to the real reason she was there? Her dark secret was about to be exposed....
Shameless
Lex Martin - 2016
Brady… What the hell do I know about raising a baby? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Yet here I am, the sole guardian of my niece. I’d be lost if it weren’t for Katherine, the beautiful girl who seems to have all the answers. Katherine, who’s slowly finding her way into my cynical heart. I keep reminding myself that I can’t fall for someone when we don’t have a future. But telling myself this lie and believing it are two different things. Katherine… When Brady shows up on a Harley, looking like an avenging angel—six feet, three inches of chiseled muscle, eyes the color of wild sage, and sun-kissed skin emblazoned with tattoos—I’m not sure if I should fall at his feet or run like hell. Because if I tell him what happened the night his family died, he might hate me. What I don’t count on are the nights we spend together trying to forget the heartache that brought us here. I promise him it won’t mean anything, that I won’t fall in love. I shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep.SHAMELESS is a standalone companion novel in the Texas Nights series. BREATHLESS, Joey and Logan's book, releases Feb. 18, 2020!
Marriage Meltdown
Emma Darcy - 1997
She had to do something to show him just how much she really desired him - had always desired him. But she'd have to act fast if she didn't want to lose him to another woman!
Black Swan Affair
K.L. Kreig - 2016
He wears scruff like he invented it and ambles with a swagger that makes panties drop. Killian Shepard. Shep. We grew up together. We played Ghost in the Graveyard. Had our own rock band. It didn’t matter that he was five years older than me. It didn’t matter that he looked at me as a kid sister even as I grew into woman. It didn’t even matter when he left me behind to go to college and start his adult life. He’d be back. He was always meant to be mine.He came back, all right. But instead of smelling of promises, he stunk of betrayal. And he destroyed me—us—the day he married my sister instead of me.So I did the only thing a girl like me in my position could do. I got my revenge. I married his brother, Kael. Now we’re one big happy f*cking family.***mature content appropriate for 18+
For Nick
Taylor Dean - 2013
He knows it won't come his way again. Andie Parker would do anything for the love of her life.Even marry a total stranger. In spite of the unorthodox manner in which Zach and Andie come together, there is no denying that things are unexpectedly good between them, taking them both by surprise. However, when secrets come between them--and trust does not--Andie soon finds herself vowing to never make the same mistake again. But, she'd do it again in a heartbeat and she knows it. She'd marry a hundred strangers if it helped Nick. She'd do anything for Nick . . . anything.
The Hard Count
Ginger Scott - 2016
During the day, it’s a place where doors are open—where homes are lived in, and neighbors love. But when the sun sets, it becomes a place where young boys are afraid, where eyes watch from idling cars that hide in the shadows and wicked smoke flows from pipes. West End is the kind of place that people survive. It buries them—one at a time, one way or another. And when Nico was a little boy, his mom always told him to run.I’m Reagan Prescott—coach’s daughter, sister to the prodigal son, daughter in the perfect family. Life on top. Lies.My world is the ugly one. Private school politics and one of the best high school football programs in the country can break even the toughest souls. Our darkness plays out in whispers and rumors, and money and status trump all. I would know—I’ve watched it kill my family slowly, strangling us for years. In our twisted world, a boy from West End is the only shining light.Quarterback. Hero.Heart.Good.I hated him before I needed him.I fell for him fast.I loved him when it was almost too late. When two ugly worlds collide, even the strongest fall. But my world…it hasn’t met the boy from West End.
Lost and Found
Lori L. Otto - 2010
I was so taken by Nate and Emi’s love for each other. It’s the kind of love that few have and many desire but never get to experience.” - Megan, Reading Books Like a Boss Independent and sensitive, idealistic and hopeful, Emi Hennigan lives her life with optimism and an open mind. Between sharing a tiny Manhattan apartment with her fun-loving roommate and spending most of her free time with her heart-breaker friend, Emi’s seen enough failed relationships to know what to avoid in her quest to find her true love. Not only that, but a single moment from her past lingers in her mind, setting high expectations for every man she dates. Emi’s best friend, artist and hopeless romantic Nate Wilson, has been her closest companion all of their adult lives. After swearing off love with Emi in a silly high school pact, Nate has been seeing other women in hopes of finding one that evokes stronger feelings than the ones he’s been harboring for Emi since he was a teen. Over the span of a year, boundaries are crossed, feelings are confessed, and their unique friendship begins to blossom into something more. Through Nate’s eyes, an atypical romance unfolds, disrupting the comfortable safe haven their friendship has provided. With a promising future ahead of them both, fate intervenes to bring two soul mates together. Photography and cover design by Christi Allen Curtis, assisted by Katrina Boone
Fighting Absolution
Kate McCarthy - 2019
Until she does.Bear is the boy behind the fence, the one who was there for her when no one else was. Until he's not.Left with nothing, Jamie joins the army hoping it will give her purpose. The last thing she expects is the best friend from her past to reappear in the dusty plains of a war-torn country. No longer the boy she once knew, Bear is now a man: big, bearded, and SAS—one of the army’s elite.Soon Jamie finds herself not only fighting against her enemies, but her feelings for a man who left her once before. Can she risk losing him all over again?Fighting Absolution is a 130k friends to lovers romance. It features characters from Fighting Redemption, but is written as a standalone.
Ryder's Wife
Sharon Sala - 1997
Beautiful Casey adored her grandfather and had been groomed by him to rule his financial empire. She refused, however, to let him rule her private life as well. With her back to the wall, she foils his last attempt to force his handpicked husband on her; instead, she walks into a roadhouse deep in the Mississippi Delta and announces that she'll marry the first man who has the guts to stand up to her pack of barracuda relatives. Ryder Justice has his own demons to fight and is running from a past that torments him. But there's something about the lovely, desperate Casey that makes him step forward. Casey thinks he has the coldest eyes she's ever seen, but she's desperate enough to make a deal with him. Fate throws Casey and Ryder together, but the heat of passion and their forced intimacy forges a bond that will make their marriage of convenience last a lifetime.
Kiss an Angel
Susan Elizabeth Phillips - 1996
Arranged marriages don't happen in the modern world, so how did the irrepressible Daisy find herself in this fix?Alex Markov, as humorless as he is deadly handsome, has no intention of playing the loving bridegroom to a spoiled little feather-head with champagne tastes. He drags Daisy from her uptown life to a broken down traveling circus and sets out to tame her to his ways.But this man without a soul has met his match in a woman who's nothing but heart. Before long, passion will send them flying sky high without a safety net... risking it all in search of a love that will last forever.