Book picks similar to
Rotten by J.L. Brooks


romance
new-adult
stand-alone
standalone

AnguiSH


Lila Felix - 2013
    Scarred doesn’t begin to define his hell since finding out his girlfriend had cheated, stolen, and lied two years ago. It led to a single event—one that would blacken his days and his nights from then on. Since then, he hasn’t left his house, crippled by fear of people and any social interaction.Ashland talks too much and has the voice of a meth-laden prairie dog, or so she’s always been told. She’s been called annoying and irritating all of her life and gave up on having friends for a long time. College has given her a new lease on a social life and she’s embraced who she is. But now she’s waiting for the one guy who can take her breath away and put up with her antics. A simple note pinned to a corkboard will lead Ash right to Breaker’s solitary world and she will learn that just because a guy doesn’t fit her ideal, doesn’t mean she won’t fall head over feet in love.

Where I End and You Begin


Andra Brynn - 2013
    It may tangle, it may knot, it may stretch or fray, but it will never break. It is a future as indelible as the past.I hope that isn't true. I pity anyone destined to meet me.----For Bianca Ray, the past is always catching up, one way or another. Now in her third semester at college, it's doing it again. Too much drinking has led to plummeting grades and rising absences, putting her scholarships in peril. When she makes it clear that she needs help—all over the floor of her history class—she’s given one last chance to shape up: seek therapy and bring her grades up by the end of the semester, or she’s out.Enter Catholic seminarian Daniel McGuire. The last thing Bianca wants is an aspiring priest to counsel her on how to live her life, but the handsome graduate student is different from the holy rollers she fled from at home. Gentle and unobtrusive, he helps her pick up the pieces and find a new way to live: not running from the past, but facing it head on. But opening up her heart to release the pain means that something else can come in. As Bianca and Daniel grow closer, their relationship moves onto dangerous ground and the fragile courage Bianca has built up threatens to fail her. Can she exorcise the ghosts of her past, or will they catch hold and drag her down where not even Daniel can reach her?

Coming Up Roses


L.K. Farlow - 2017
    She doesn't need a man. After all, her Grams taught her a thing or two about making lemonade out of life's lemons. Then she meets Cash Carson. Reeling from a bad breakup, Cash has sworn off love. It led to nothing but pain and misery, and he’s determined to move forward alone. Until a redheaded Southern beauty crashes into him. With her shopping cart. At the local Piggly Wiggly. If love wasn't for him, why did his heart beat a little faster every time Myla Rose sent that sweet smile his way? He was no knight, and she didn't need saving. But damn if he didn't want to try anyway. COMING UP ROSES is a sweet, Southern fairy tale—with a twist.

Ever Enough


Stacy Borel - 2013
    After muddling through the next ten years-including immersing herself in a lifeless marriage-she is brought to her knees when she encounters Finley at her high school reunion. Long ago buried emotions and feelings bubble to the surface and when Finley kisses her, Emilyn flees the scene. Arriving home to find her husband in the arms of another woman, Emilyn is forced to return to her hometown and start again. But is it possible to start afresh when the past just won’t seem to let you go?Finley has spent the ten years since high school focused on his career. As a songwriter, he has never had a problem getting women. But when he realizes that the woman he let go a decade ago could be his happy ever after, he decides to do whatever it takes to get her back. But are some hurdles too great to overcome?

Trust


Kylie Scott - 2017
    Unwilling to put up with the snobbery and bullying at her private school, she enrolls at the local public high school, crossing paths with John. The boy who risked his life to save hers.While Edie’s beginning to run wild, however, John’s just starting to settle down. After years of partying and dealing drugs with his older brother, he’s going straight—getting to class on time, and thinking about the future.An unlikely bond grows between the two as John keeps Edie out of trouble and helps her broaden her horizons. But when he helps her out with another first—losing her virginity—their friendship gets complicated.Meanwhile, Edie and John are pulled back into the dangerous world they narrowly escaped. They were lucky to survive the first time, but this time they have more to lose—each other.

Muscle Memory


Stylo Fantome - 2017
    Her voice when she laughs, her eyes when she cries. Her soul connected to mine, for better or for worse, for all eternity.I don't remember.A blank face. Unrecognizable. The darkness and impenetrable fog, day after day after day. Who am I? And for that matter, who is she?I can't remember.Two sides to the same coin – one wants to remember, and the other wants to stay forgotten. Which side will win? Can he trust his heart to bring him back to her? Or will she stay lost in the fog forever?I might never remember.warning: features adult themes

Getting Lucky Number Seven


Cindi Madsen - 2015
    While every other college student is out having fun, Lyla is studying. With her cat. Well, she's played it "safe" quite enough, thank you. So she creates a "College Bucket List"―with item #7 being a night of uninhibited, mind-blowing sex...But she needs some help from her man-whore best friend.Hockey player Beck Davenport thought Lyla's transformation would be subtle. Man, was he wrong. With every item she ticks off, Beck finds himself growing seriously hot for his sweet, brainiac best friend. And if he's not careful, he'll end up risking their friendship in order to convince Lyla that he might just be her lucky #7...

Drowning


Rachel Firasek - 2013
    She's a party girl that doesn't believe in love until she meets a man that only writes about it.Seth James escaped his overbearing father and moved into one of the James family's vacant condos, hoping to create the music he loves in peace. But the fragile calm he's envisioned shatters when a tiny woman with a world full of energy bounces out of the elevator and nearly takes him out.With the patience of a saint, Seth seeks the dark that keeps Alice from enjoying life. He challenges her to exorcise the demons in her past in order to discover the true meaning of love. But when the walls fall down, the hidden deceptions will bare the ugly truth about a woman drowning in sorrow and a man who may not know how to be her hero.

Black Box


Cassia Leo - 2014
    Their first encounter changes Mikki's life forever, but their second meeting leaves them both buried beneath the emotional wreckage of a violent attack. Mikki is left with more questions and grief than she can handle, while Crush is forced to forget the girl who saved his life.Now nineteen years old, Mikki Gladstone has decided she's tired of the mind-numbing meds. She books a flight to Los Angeles to end her life far away from her loving, though often distant, family.Twenty-one-year-old Crush has always channeled his blackest thoughts into his music, but he's never had great aspirations. He decides to fly to Los Angeles to record a demo of the only song he's never performed in public; a song he wrote for a girl he doesn't even know: Black Box. He has no expectations of fame and he's never felt like his life had any purpose... until he meets Mikki in Terminal B.When Mikki and Crush cross paths for the third time in Terminal B, neither has any idea who the other person is; until they slowly piece together their history and realize that fate has more in store for them than just another love story.

Wanted by You


Steph Nuss - 2014
    Carter was captivated by Ellyson Evans the moment he laid eyes on her, but she was the one girl who didn't beg for his attention.He wanted her.Ellyson vowed to never fall in love, because love can destroy you, but then she met Carter Jennings.She wanted him.Unwilling to risk their comfortable friendship, neither confessed their desires.Losing touch after college, a chance meeting reconnects them.They want each other.But love in the city is never quite that easy.

Hold on to Hope


A.L. Jackson - 2019
    Jackson . . . Evan Bryant wasn't your typical hero.But he was mine.Broken by the worlds' standards, he was still the strongest boy I would ever know.My best friend. The boy I'd given everything to. My heart, my body, and the promise of forever.The day I'd needed him most, he walked away.He left me shattered and questioning the love I'd thought we'd shared.Three years later, I wasn't prepared for him to return to Gingham Lakes.It wouldn't have mattered if he wasn't the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.My fingers still would have ached to caress his skin.My body still would have begged to get lost in his touch.And my heart . . . it would have always sung his name.But time changes things. With it, secrets that could ruin everything.Can we find a way to love again, or have the fears of our past stolen the hope of our forever . . .

Therapy


Kathryn Perez - 2014
    I’m needy. I’m broken. Cutting breaks through my numbness, but only opens more wounds. Depression, self-harm, bullying....that's my reality. Sex and guys....that's my escape. The space between the truth and lies is blurred leaving me torn, lost and confused. And while the monsters that live in my head try to beat me-- the two men that I love try to save me. This is my story of friendship, heartache, and the grueling journey that is mental-illness.Warning: Due to possible triggering subject matter and some sexual situations this book is not recommended for anyone under the age of 17 years old.

We Were Once


S.L. Scott - 2020
    Scott, crafts her signature heartfelt style into a brand new emotional, second chance, standalone romance. I have three goals: graduate from an Ivy League university, get into medical school, and follow in my father’s well-established footsteps. Everything was going exactly as planned until the local bad boy was delivered to my doorstep. Literally.From the moment we meet, my old life becomes unrecognizable, but I have no regrets. I’m utterly captivated by him. His smirk. His heart. His sharp wit. He pushes me to live, to be wild, to pursue the dream I’ve always hidden inside.To the rest of the world, we make no sense.Me, the girl from the gilded New England coast.Joshua, from the small city of New Haven.To us, we’re destiny.Together, we had it all. Desperately. Madly. In love.Until we didn’t. One tragic night changed everything.

Full Measures


Rebecca Yarros - 2014
    That’s why Mom hadn’t opened the door. She knew he was dead." Twenty years as an army brat and Ember Howard knew, too. The soldiers at the door meant her dad was never coming home. What she didn’t know was how she would find the strength to singlehandedly care for her crumbling family when her mom falls apart. Then Josh Walker enters her life. Hockey star, her new next-door neighbor, and not to mention the most delicious hands that insist on saving her over and over again. He has a way of erasing the pain with a single look, a single touch. As much as she wants to turn off her feelings and endure the heartache on her own, she can’t deny their intense attraction. Until Josh’s secret shatters their world. And Ember must decide if he’s worth the risk that comes with loving a man who could strip her bare.

Kiss Me Like This


Bella Andre - 2014
    Nothing seems to matter anymore...until the night Serena Britten unexpectedly ends up in his arms. Serena is a world-famous model who has only ever wanted to be normal, even though her mother has always pushed her to become a superstar. Though it isn't easy to try to leave everyone and everything she knows behind, Serena is determined to enroll in college. More than anything, she wants to turn her love for books into a new career that she actually loves. Only, she never expected to meet someone like Sean on campus—or to be instantly consumed by their incredible chemistry and connection. But when the pressures of her high-profile modeling career only get bigger and more demanding, will it make living a normal life as a college student—and falling in love with the hottest guy on campus—impossible?