Book picks similar to
The Surprise by Alice Ward


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contemporary
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Moonshot


Alessandra Torre - 2016
    The daughter of a legend, the Yankees were my family, their stadium my home, their dugout my workplace. My focus was on the game. Chase... he started out as a distraction. A distraction with sex appeal poured into every inch of his six foot frame. A distraction who played like a god and partied like a devil. I tried to stay away. I couldn’t. Then, the team started losing. Women started dying. And everything in my world broke apart.

Forsaking Gray


K.L. Kreig - 2015
    Deception. Betrayal.Within less than twenty-four hours of proposing to the love of Gray's life, Liva disappeared. No note. No trace. No explanation. Nothing. Now, five years later, she’s resurfaced and Gray will stop at nothing to make Livia his again. But is love enough to forgive an unforgivable wrong?Livia had less than sixty seconds to make a decision that would change her life forever. She sacrificed. She suffered. She survived. Now that she's back, she's determined that no one ever discover her shameful secret - especially the only man she's ever loved. But will hiding the past destroy her future?

Dirty Headlines


L.J. Shen - 2018
    Shen, comes a new standalone, enemies-to-lovers romance.Célian Laurent.Manhattan royalty.Notorious playboy.Heir to a media empire....And my new boss.I could have impressed him, if not for last month's unforgettable one-night stand.I left it with more than orgasms and a pleasant memory--namely, his wallet.Now he's staring me down like I'm the dirt under his Italian loafers, and I'm supposed to take it.But the thing about being Judith "Jude" Humphry is I have nothing to lose.Brooklyn girl.Infamously quirky.Heir to a stack of medical bills and a tattered couch.When he looks at me from across the room, I see the glint in his eyes, and that makes us rivals.He knows it.So do I. Every day in the newsroom is a battle.Every night in his bed, war.But it's my heart at stake, and I fear I'll be raising the white flag.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time


Kylie Scott - 2018
    If being sent away at eighteen hadn’t been bad enough, the mess she left behind when she made a pass at her dad’s business partner sure was.Fifteen years older than her, Pete had been her crush for as long as she could remember. But she’d misread the situation—confusing friendliness for undying love. Awkward. Add her father to the misunderstanding, and Pete had been left with a broken nose and a business on the edge of ruin. The man had to be just as glad as everyone else when she left town.Seven years on, things are different. Adele is no longer a kid, but a fully grown adult more than capable of getting through the wedding and being polite. But all it takes is seeing him again to bring back all those old feelings.Sometimes first loves are the truest.

Second Chance Holiday


Aurora Rose Reynolds - 2014
    He decided long ago that he would rather stay single than get mixed up with a woman again. Then Kathleen Mullings comes back into his life with her teenage son and changes everything. What happens when a man set in his ways meets a sassy woman who knows what she wants? Mix in the Mayson clan and the Christmas season and you’re sure to enjoy the ride of Second Chance Holiday.

Say You're Mine


Jenika Snow - 2016
    I wanted that desperately, wanted her in my life, and I'd do anything to make sure that happened.Until Maggie came in my life I didn't know what love was.She'll be my first and last.I'll be her only. MaggieI didn't know I could have a friendship like the one I have with Felix. But the friend-zone wall has always been in place. Being too afraid to cross it, I'd rather be in Felix's life than tarnish the relationship we have.Too much time has passed. I'm done being afraid of the what-ifs. I'm ready to admit how I feel for him, consequences or not. FelixMaggie doesn't know the lengths I'll go to keep her in my life, but she will, because the very idea of her with someone else is not something I'll even entertain. She's always been mine, and it's time I step up and show her how much I love her.My devotion for her goes to the very depths of my soul, and staying back as she lives her life without me by her side is absolutely not an option.I know once I finally have her in all ways it'll be the most explosive experience of my life.Warning: This story is so sweet (and of course dirty) it might give you a stomachache, but it will be worth it. It's short, with detailed first-time sexiness, and features a virgin hero and heroine that know exactly what they are doing between the sheets.**And for a very limited time Virgin, an equally sugary story about falling in love and saving yourself for that one person, is included at the end of Say You're Mine (due to Virgin being included at the back of this book, Say You're Mine ends at 52%.)**

Tortured


Nicole Williams - 2017
    She didn’t realize how right she was. When Lance Corporal Brecken Connolly gets taken as a POW, Camryn hopes for the best but steels herself for the worst. In the end, steel was what she needed to survive when he didn’t. She moves on the only way she knows how—gilding herself in more steel. Years go by. She builds a new life. She leaves the old one behind.Until one day, she sees the face of a ghost on the news. Brecken seems to have risen from the dead, but she knows she can’t perform the same miracle for herself. While Brecken was held in a torture camp for the past five years, she’s been trapped in her own kind of prison. One she can't be saved from.The man she mourned comes back to join the living, but the girl he wanted to spend his life with isn’t the same woman he comes back for. Brecken isn’t the same person either. The past five years have changed them both. While he’s determined to put the pieces back together, she’s resolved to let hers rot where they shattered. Broken or not, Brecken wants her back. He’ll do anything to achieve that. Even if it means going against the warden of Camryn’s personal prison—her husband.

Discretion


Karina Halle - 2019
    For Sadie Reynolds, a down-on-her-luck student, the Riviera means dingy hostels and back streets. When a wrong turn puts her in jeopardy, the last thing she expects is to be saved by the most handsome stranger she’s ever locked eyes with. When she later wakes up in a luxury suite with a Mediterranean view, she’s in the tender care of her rescuer: Olivier Dumont, France’s most eligible bachelor, billionaire hotelier, and heir to the Dumont fashion fortune.Olivier also owns his reputation for scandal. But Sadie is unlike any woman he’s ever met. Her humble persona and wild innocence promise real passion. He’s promising Sadie something too: anything she wants. From Bordeaux to Cannes to Paris, Sadie’s past in America is swept away and replaced with a fantasy too good to be true.Pulled into Olivier’s orbit of wealth, glamour, and excess, Sadie discovers that the Dumont dynasty comes with a legacy of wicked secrets. And Olivier’s secrets may be the most damning of all…

Misconduct


Penelope Douglas - 2015
    What brought her to this stage in her life isn’t important. She can’t let it be. But now one parent-teacher meeting may be her undoing…Meeting Tyler Marek for the first time makes it easy for Easton to see why his son is having trouble in school. The man knows how to manage businesses and wealth, not a teenage boy. Or a young teacher, for that matter, though he tries to. And yet…there is something about him that draws Easton in—a hint of vulnerability, a flash of attraction, a spark that might burn.Wanting him is taboo. Needing him is undeniable. And his long-awaited touch will weaken Easton’s resolve—and reveal what should stay hidden…(*STANDALONE, NO CLIFFHANGER*)

Mating Theory


Skye Warren - 2020
    They say the nice guy finishes last. So what's the point of being a goddamn gentleman?Maybe I should take what I want. Even that sexy little thing on the street corner.She needs a hot meal and a place to sleep. Instead I'm taking her home to soothe the savage beast inside me. I was born a bastard, and for the first time in my life I act like one.Except the more I use her, the more I need her.I didn't know I had someone left to lose.But for a single heartbeat, I had her.

Chasing the Moon


S.M. Soto - 2020
    A love like theirs was never destined to last. Selene Drake has always been the girl that blends into the background.The wallflower.Quiet.Unnoticed.Sweet as can be.It never bothered her, she preferred slinking into the shadows.When she first laid eyes on Endymion Black, she fell irrevocably in love with him.The bad boy.Cold.Distant.Handsome as ever.For years, she pined after the unattainable boy who had somehow burrowed his way into her heart.Until everything changed.One unforgettable night bridled with passion and forbidden lust destroyed her naïve heart and reshaped her innocent soul. It sent her fleeing from the only town she’d ever truly known.Six years later, Selene is back in Dunsmuir and the boy she spent years loving in silence, has now turned into a man. A man with his sights set on her. Somehow, the tables have turned, and this time around, he’s the one doing the chasing, determined to claim her heart as his. Only, he doesn’t realize, she has a secret of her own. One with the potential to change their lives forever.Chasing the Moon is a full-length standalone romance with a guaranteed HEA.

HIS Everything


Frankie Love - 2017
    And when she tells me her fantasies … there’s nothing that will stop me from making them come true. She asks me to play her baby-daddy and wants the role of my wife. I’ll give in to her domestic kink … after all, she’s a virgin determined to get her cherry popped -- and with a body as delicious as hers, I know I’ll need another taste. We share one unforgettable night and make plans for plenty more … but then she disappears into thin air. No trace. No name. All I have is the memory of her innocence and the belief that what we had was real. Nothing will stop me from finding her. She's my everything ... and I’ll make sure she never forgets it. Dear Reader, This is a filthy-sweet story with kinky undertones … well, not really under … more like on top of and inside. Filled with, even. It’s got amnesia, oysters, and plenty of shucking. xo, frankie

My Enemy Next Door


Nicole London - 2018
    After the final rude message she wrote in my yearbook, I decided that we didn't need to see each other anymore. (But if we ever did, I would show her exactly why I had every reason to be "cocky," and make her admit that I really *was* "that damn sexy.")Now that it's ten years later, I've graduated from law school at the top of my class, and I'm being recruited to work at the number one law firm in New York City.Since I'm in desperate need of a change and want to meet new people, I don't hesitate to accept the offer.Until I find out that Courtney Ryan graduated from law school, too.Until I realize that she'll be working at the same exact firm, in the office right across from me.And if this timing isn't unfortunate enough, she's far more tempting and sexier than I originally remembered.(Oh, and last night I found out that she lives right next door...)We don't have to be close.We don't have to be best friends.But she's going to pay me back for making us enemies all over again...

Bear My Soul


T.S. Joyce - 2015
    After one night of bliss with a man she never thought she’d see again, she’s in trouble with a young son who is housing one ferocious little bear cub inside of him. Desperate to keep her baby’s secret safe, she has nowhere to turn but to the man she was determined to keep in her past. What she doesn’t expect is the instantaneous, heart-pounding connection she remembers from before. But all of the sex appeal in the world can’t hide the fact that Cody Keller is keeping dark secrets of his own.Alpha bear shifter, Cody, is a firefighter by day but something more sinister by night. Towing a fine line between leading a normal life and keeping the government off his crew’s back, he has been running missions that few sane men would take, and even fewer would survive. But when the woman he has searched six years for blows back into town, toting a kid who bears his mark, his life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.It’s not enough to protect the Breck Crew from the growing threats around him anymore. Cody will have to push back and stand up for his kind if he wants a shot at keeping his fragile new family safe from what he’s become.Content Warning: explicit love scenes, naughty language, and piles of sexy shifter secrets.Adult only bear shifter romance.

Where I Belong


J. Daniels - 2014
    One person that she’d do anything to avoid.Benjamin Kelly. World’s biggest dickhead.Mia hates him with a fury and has no desire to ever see him again. When she decides to start her summer off with a bang and finally give away her v-card, she unknowingly hands it over to the one guy that excelled at making her life miserable, learning a valuable lesson in the process.Always get the name of the guy you’re going home with.Ben can’t get the girl he spent one night with out of his head. When she leaves him the next morning, he thinks he’ll never see her again. Until he sees her lounging by the pool with his sister.Mia is determined to hate Ben, even though she can’t forget him.Ben is determined to prove he’s not the same guy he used to be.What happens when the one person you wish never existed becomes the one person you can’t imagine being without?