Book picks similar to
Second to None by Nancy Herkness


romance
contemporary-romance
contemporary
novella

Lana


R.K. Lilley - 2013
    Even knowing that he viewed her as a kid sister had never helped to dampen her feelings. One night together only made it worse. After seducing Akira, it became apparent that their love affair was hopelessly one-sided, and heartbroken, Lana fled her beloved island paradise.Eight years later, Lana finally returns home, planning to stay briefly, and only for business, but her plans go quickly awry when she runs into the man she could never get over. At just under 34,000 words, this story is a novella. This book is intended for ages 18+

Evidence of the Affair


Taylor Jenkins Reid - 2018
    Even though I do not know you…The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here.Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

The Upside of Falling Down


Rebekah Crane - 2018
    Ever since she woke up in an Irish hospital with complete amnesia, self-discovery has become her mission.They tell her she’s the lone survivor of a plane crash. They tell her she’s lucky to be alive. But she doesn’t feel lucky. She feels…lost.With the relentless Irish press bearing down on her, and a father she may not even recognize on his way from America to take her home, Clementine assumes a new identity and enlists a blue-eyed Irish stranger, Kieran O’Connell, to help her escape her forgotten life…and start a new one.Hiding out in the sleepy town of Waterville, Ireland, Clementine discovers there’s an upside to a life that’s fallen apart. But as her lies grow, so does her affection for Kieran, and the truth about her identity becomes harder and harder to reveal, forcing Clementine to decide: Can she leave her past behind for a new love she’ll never forget?

The Rich Boy


Kylie Scott - 2020
    So when Beck – the hot new busboy at work – starts flirting with me, I know better than to get my hopes up. Happily ever afters aren’t for the average. I learned that the hard way. But how can I be expected to resist a man who can quote Austen, loves making me laugh, and seems to be everything hot and good in this world?Only there’s so much more to him than that. Billionaire playboy? Check. Troubled soul? Check. The owner of my heart, the man I’ve moved halfway across the country to be with, who’s laying the world at my feet in order to convince me to never leave? Check. Check. Check. But nobody does complicated like the one percent. This is not your everyday rags-to-riches, knight-in-shining armor whisking the poor girl off her feet kind of story. No, this is much messier.

Seek


Mia Sheridan - 2018
    She's even more heartbroken and confused when a hired private investigator tracks him half a world away, to a seaside town in Colombia. But the country has recently been ravaged by a massive earthquake and deadly tsunami, shutting down outside communication and making travel all but impossible. Still, Olivia is determined to make it to Colombia to find the answers she so desperately seeks. What she needs is a guide—a mercenary.The man named Thomas arrives in shadows, an unmistakable air of danger about him, promising to help lead her through the ruined, crime-infested country. But when Thomas and Olivia find themselves fighting an undeniable attraction, danger takes on a whole new meaning. Then again, in the lush jungles of South America, all the rules are different and Thomas and Olivia are about to discover that sometimes the thing you seek, isn't necessarily the thing you find.Seek is a STANDALONE novel with a small, fun connection to the Sign of Love Collection

The Billionaire's Secret Heart


Ivy Layne - 2016
    Are you kidding? Holden Winters? A scion of the notorious Winters family, Holden is gorgeous, wealthy, and brilliant. He dates socialites and pop stars, not computer science grad students more comfortable in a hoodie than couture. Our night together was a fantasy…and a huge mistake. Holden: I don't usually steal other guy's dates. I don't have to. A look is all it takes, and the women fall over themselves to get to me. Then I saw Josephine, sitting with her dweeb of a date, just waiting for a man who could appreciate her lush curves and sharp brain. When she ghosted on me, I shouldn't have been so shocked, but women never walk away from me. Josephine thought she could call the shots - she didn't realize that a Winters man always gets what he wants. And I wanted her. The Billionaire’s Secret Heart is a standalone romance with a happy ending. It’s the first in the Scandals of the Bad Boy Billionaires series, and introduces the notorious men of the Winters family. You can read it on its own, but you might want to read the others once you get a taste of the Winters men.

Closer to You


Jill Sanders - 2017
    Now, to keep the old man’s legacy afloat, Tyler’s giving up his playboy ways and settling into small-town life. But his newfound resolve is tested when trouble strides into his office in five-inch heels.Kristen Howell has spent the last five years working her way up the corporate ladder. And somehow it’s landed her smack-dab in the middle of nowhere: Haven, Montana. It’s her job to convince the head of McGowan Enterprises to sell. But the tall and rangy hunk is proving to be exceedingly stubborn—and overwhelmingly hot. When someone attempts to derail her negotiations, Kristen is ready to get down and dirty. But the sparks she and Tyler are throwing near the oil field may be dangerously combustible…

Before Girl


Kate Canterbary - 2018
    He's the guy who's loved her from afar. They're in for an unexpected tumble into love. She'll juggle your balls. For Stella Allesandro, chaos is good. She's a rising star at a leading sports publicity firm. She's known throughout the industry as the jock whisperer—the one who can tame the baddest of the bad boys in professional sports without losing her signature smile. But Cal Hartshorn is an entirely different kind of chaos. He'll fix your broken heart. This former Army Ranger and now-famous cardiothoracic surgeon fails at nothing…except talking to a woman he's adored from afar. Whether on the battlefield or operating room, he's exacting, precise, and efficient, but all of that crumbles when Stella is in sight. Cal always knows—and gets—what he wants, and now he wants all of her. His forever girl. But Stella isn't convinced she's anyone's forever.

Charmed by the Bartender


Piper Rayne - 2017
    Probably not in retrospect. In my defense I had just moved back into my grandparent’s house, I’d lost my dream job, and a guy on Tinder had stood me up. It was like life had suddenly stamped ‘LOSER’ on my forehead. So when the guy behind the bar started giving me THE look…you know, the one that promised I’d be screaming his name into the wee hours of the morning? When that guy also has the perfect amount of scruff on his chiseled chin, biceps bulging out of his t-shirt, and a cocky grin you knew he’d earned in the sack…when he gives you that look, you don’t bother to figure out what your six degrees of separation are. You jump on that horse and ride it! Pun fully and completely intended. And accurate by the way. I fully admit to feeling sorry for myself and acting impulsively, but by the time I’d figured out WHO the bartender was, I was already falling for him.

One Wild Night


A.L. Jackson - 2018
    Living in L.A. her entire life, she knows the glitz and glam of Hollywood is just an illusion.That is until she stumbles head first into the arms of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor. It was just another day for Paxton Myles on the red carpet until the blue-eyed beauty literally stumbles at his feet. A single glimpse in her innocent eyes and he knows he has to have her. After one night of unbridled passion, Kaylee slips away to live her quiet life, but the paparazzi has other ideas.When Kaylee’s world comes crashing down, can Paxton convince her that their one wild night could turn into forever?

You Were There Too


Colleen Oakley - 2020
    But she has other dreams too — unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of them, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own—he's been dreaming of her too. Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question—what if?Acclaimed author Colleen Oakley delivers a heart-wrenching and unforgettable love story about a woman who must choose between the man she loves and the man fate has chosen for her in a novel that reminds us that the best life is one led by the heart.

Taken


Rebecca Zanetti - 2019
    Even if it means working with the woman who broke his heart five years ago—the woman who still haunts his dreams . . . Faye Smith has spent five long years trying to get her life back on track. She knows she should’ve turned toward Hunter and not away from him. But they both had too many demons to destroy. Maybe now they’ll get another chance—and save someone else’s life too . . . But first they’ll have to stop arguing long enough to trust the Deep Ops team. Hunter was a lost boy himself once. In fact, he ran away from the exact same man, their monster of a father. Now he and Faye will have to unite to find the brother he never knew—and maybe each other . . .

Say You Still Love Me


K.A. Tucker - 2019
    On the other hand, she’s considered a pair of sexy legs in a male-dominated world and constantly has to prove her worth. Plus, she’s stuck seeing her narcissistic ex-fiancé—a fellow VP—on the other side of her glass office wall every day.Things get exponentially more complicated for Piper when she runs into Kyle Miller—the handsome new security guard at Calloway Group Industries, and coincidentally the first love of her life.The guy she hasn’t seen or heard from since they were summer camp counsellors together. The guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The guy who apparently doesn’t even remember her name.Piper may be a high-powered businesswoman now, but she soon realizes that her schoolgirl crush is not only alive but stronger than ever, and crippling her concentration. What’s more, despite Kyle’s distant attitude, she’s convinced their reunion isn’t at all coincidental, and that his feelings for her still run deep. And she’s determined to make him admit to them, no matter the consequences.

Would Like to Meet


Rachel Winters - 2019
    But now the TV and film agency she's been running behind the scenes is in trouble, and Evie will lose her job unless she can convince the agency's biggest and most arrogant client, Ezra Chester, to finish writing the script for a Hollywood romantic comedy. The catch? Ezra is suffering from writer's block--and he'll only put pen to paper if singleton Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like they do in the movies. With the future of the agency in jeopardy, Evie embarks on a mission to meet a man the way Sally met Harry or Hugh Grant met Julia Roberts. But in the course of testing out the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedies IRL, not only will Evie encounter one humiliating situation after another, but she'll have to confront the romantic past that soured her on love. In a novel as hilarious as it is heartwarming, debut author Rachel Winters proves that sometimes real life is better than the movies--and that the best kind of meet-cutes happen when you least expect them.

Revelry


Kandi Steiner - 2017
     She never expected to be divorced at twenty-seven, but now that the court date has passed, it’s official. The paperwork is final. Her feelings on it aren’t. Spending the summer in a small mountain town outside Seattle is exactly what she needs. The peaceful scenery is a given, the cat with the croaky meow is a surprise, but the real kicker? A broody neighbor with nice arms, a strange reputation, and absolutely no interest in her. Anderson Black is perfectly fine being lost. He doesn’t care about the town’s new resident — he’s too busy fighting his own demons. But when he’s brought face to face with Wren, he can see her still-fresh wounds from a mile away. What he doesn’t see coming is his need to know who put them there — or his desperation to mend them. Sometimes getting lost is the way to find yourself. Sometimes healing only adds a new scar. And sometimes the last place you expected to be is exactly where you find home.