Book picks similar to
The Awful Mess by Sandra Hutchison


romance
contemporary-romance
chick-lit
ebook

In Too Deep


Tracey Alvarez - 2013
    He broke her heart to save his own.As an elite police diver tormented by her father's fatal drowning accident, Piper Harland is forced back to the one place she'd sworn never to return. Her tiny hometown on New Zealand’s isolated Stewart Island hasn’t much changed in the nine years she’s been gone. But she soon comes face to face with everything she ran from — grief, regret, and the scalding pain of a love lost.The one place Ryan "West" Westlake belongs is a hundred feet below Stewart Island’s dangerous waters with one breath of air and only a line to guide him to the surface. Down deep he can forget his mentor’s death. Down deep he can forget the one woman who seared his heart when she left. Only now she’s back, and as it turns out, he hasn’t forgotten a thing.Desire and tempers flare when West and Piper cross paths again. Can they face their past and be together? Two hearts. A second chance. Everything on the line...IN TOO DEEP is the first story in Tracey Alvarez's best-selling Stewart Island books set against the stunning backdrop of Aotearoa, New Zealand. If you like heartwarming, sexy and sweet small town romances with a touch of comedy, you'll love sharing the journey with these authentic men and women struggling to find their special someone.Intended for mature 18+ aged readers who enjoy their feel good romance on the steamier side.

Sisters in Love


Melissa Foster - 2013
    As a therapist, she prides herself on making reasonable, conservative choices, even if a bit boring, and as part of the Big Sister Program, she has little time for anything more in her life.Blake Carter is a player. He never gets bored of conquering women, and with his sexy good looks and successful lifestyle, he has no trouble finding willing participants. When his friend and business partner dies in a tragic accident, he suddenly, desperately, wants to change his ways. The problem is, he doesn't know how to stop doing what he does best.When Blake walks into Danica's office, the attraction between them is white hot, but Danica isn't the type to give in to the heat and risk her career. Danica's desire sets her on a path of self-discovery, where she begins to question every decision she's ever made. Just this once, Danica wants to indulge in the pleasures of life she's been so willingly ignoring, but with her Little Sister in turmoil and her biological sister's promiscuousness weighing heavily on her heart, she isn't sure it's the right time to set her desires free.

Taste for Trouble


Susan Sey - 2013
    Off the field? He’s pure trouble. When his fondness for fast women and bar brawls lands him a suspension from the game, he’s prepared to take his punishment like a man. But since when does a suspension come with a live-in nanny?TV baking maven Belinda West is the epitome of home-made hospitality, on-screen and off. The personal is the professional when you’re selling the good life, after all. But when her wedding day implodes in front of a live studio audience, Bel’s career goes into a death spiral. She’ll do anything to save it, even take charge of soccer’s most famous bad boy. To hell with the morals clause in his contract; James isn’t about to shape up for some knock-off Mary Poppins. But since when does Mary Poppins laugh like a naughty angel and smell like sugar cookies? He’s not looking for love but that kiss of hers is practically perfect in every way. And James has a powerful taste for trouble.

Reckless Nights in Rome


C.C. MacKenzie - 2012
    THE ONE! Though the name of her celebration and wedding cake business is up in lights, Bronte Ludlow doesn't care for the trappings of success. All that matters to her is her company, her independence and her heritage,The Dower House. Home to her ancestors since the seventeenth century, no way will she part with it to ‘a man with too much money and no soul’. Nico Ferranti’s only passions are money and power... He's a man who stopped believing in romance long ago and Bronte's a romantic, yet the attraction sparking between them like fireworks over the Piazza del Popolo stuns Nico. When Bronte's brother is badly hurt in a car accident in Rome, Nico whisks Bronte to the Eternal City. He wants her and he wants The Dower House and Nico Ferranti always gets what he wants. But Bronte’s heart has already been broken by one ruthless charmer and although tempted she isn’t about to give up either her heart or her home to the charismatic Italian without a fight!

Honeymoon for One


Lily Zante - 2014
    Dumped by her fiancé six weeks before their Valentine's Day wedding, a jilted bride goes on her honeymoon alone.She was looking to heal and find peace.But in visiting Verona, the City of Love, her life takes on a completely different direction, especially when she meets the mysterious and handsome Nico Cazale.Will her adventure give her the clarity she’s looking for or lead to more heartbreak?Honeymoon For One is a second chance romance, feel-good inspirational romance featuring hot millionaire bachelor with a heart of gold, and a jilted bride.** This is Book 1 of a 5 part romance series about the same couple **

Stealing Jenny


Ellen Gable - 2011
    A neighbor, however, is secretly hatching a sinister plot which will find Jenny and her unborn baby fighting for their lives.

Love in a Small Town


Zoe York - 2014
    The demands of his double career—as a police officer and military reservist—were a dealbreaker when they were together. And he’s thrilled for her when she lands a new job with a film company, but it comes with a deadline: when she finishes this project, she’s leaving town for good.Olivia has no reason to stay in Rafe’s tiny hometown, where the only job she could find was waiting tables in the local diner. But she couldn’t move on until she figured out what she wanted next in life. Now she’s been tasked with the unlikely role of ambassador for a town that has done nothing but break her heart, and discovering unexpected surprises at every turn.They aren’t the same young kids who rushed into marriage the first time. But as summer slides into fall, Rafe sets out to prove he’s a changed man before he loses her forever.***This is a second edition, revised and expanded for 2020; the first edition was published in 2014.

The Substitute


Denise Grover Swank - 2014
    Megan Vandemeer meant to tell her parents about her broken engagement, but a month and a half later she finds herself boarding a plane home to her wedding. Having stretched avoidance to its limits, it's time to come clean--a terrifying prospect since her mother is sure to blame her rather than her cheating, emotionally frigid ex. A couple of drinks and two Dramamine later, Megan finds herself spilling her sob story to the tall, dark, and handsome stranger in the seat next to her. With only one week left to save his business, Josh McMillan boards a plane to Kansas City in a last-ditch effort, leaving the details to chance. An unexpected answer is delivered in the form of the beautiful brunette beside him. Though she’s completely loopy, her honesty, openness, and humor charm him. So when she passes out before landing, he helps her off the plane--a good deed that leads to a colossal misunderstanding. Her parents assume he’s her fiancé. In a twist of fate, the mix-up might help Josh save his business, so he plays along, figuring he can help Megan too. All he has to do is stage a public break up convincing enough to appease her mother. Josh is only supposed to be a substitute groom, but the more time he and Megan spend together, the more their pretend engagement starts to feel real…and the less they want to break it off. Can a relationship that began as a farce turn into happily ever after?

Nora Roberts Land


Ava Miles - 2013
    All dreams of happily ever after—or Nora Roberts Land as her mother calls it—went up in smoke. But when her family asks her to temporarily help their Dare Valley, Colorado newspaper, she decides it’s time to change her life and prove her ex wrong. She’s determined to find her own small-town Nora Roberts hero, prove that true love exists, and publish a story about her quest.War correspondent Tanner McBride has just returned stateside to work for a major newspaper, and the last thing he expects is blackmail. Yet, before he can even unpack, he’s headed to Colorado. His assignment? Make his boss’s ex-wife fall for him and then break her heart. Her article about discovering love à la Nora might air dirty laundry about her marriage to the media mogul, threatening his senate run. The mogul wants Meredith stopped, and he makes sure Tanner has no choice in the matter.When the two meet, the sparks between them are undeniable. Meredith, who vowed never to date another journalist, begins to succumb. Could Tanner be her Nora Roberts hero? As they work together to uncover the truth behind a suspicious death, the depth of their feelings unfolds and both realize they’ve kept their secrets for far too long. But before the truth can be revealed, their investigation takes a deadly turn, one that might make Meredith’s personal Nora Roberts Land go up in flames.

Love, Chocolate, and Beer


Violet Duke - 2014
    After moving his chocolate shop, and newly single life, to the quirky town of Cactus Creek, Luke wants nothing more than to devote all his energy into making his business a success—by taking the romance market by storm. But his grand plans get thrown for a loop when he locks horns with the feisty beer-brewing beauty next door who calls his ‘romantic idealism’ a load of fairytale bull. Soon, driving the woman sparking nuts becomes another wickedly fun priority he simply can’t get enough of.In his defense, she’s addictively easy to incite…and plain impossible to resist.Beloved local brewmaster Dani Dobson is beyond riled up. It’s bad enough the new shop owner in town comes locked and loaded with both a distractingly rugged charm and sexy flashing dimples, but the whole only-in-the-movies variety of romance he’s selling—the kind her world has been crushed by before—is really doing a number on her allergy to unrealistic clichés. What’s worse, he’s created an annoyingly clever ad campaign that dubs ‘beer joints’ like hers as the “cave where romance goes to hibernate.” The nerve of that man.Combustible chemistry or not, damn it, this means war. The stakes…very likely, her heart.

Overprotected


Jennifer Laurens - 2011
    He thought I'd never fall in love. He thought he could keep me forever.Charles: obsessed with keeping her safe, keeping her his, he hires the one person he knows she could never fall in love with: Colin.Daddy was wrong.

The Stolen Marriage


Diane Chamberlain - 2017
    It showcases Diane Chamberlain at the top of her talent.One mistake, one fateful night, and Tess DeMello’s life is changed forever. It is 1944. Pregnant, alone, and riddled with guilt, twenty-three-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly gives up her budding career as a nurse and ends her engagement to the love of her life, unable to live a lie. Instead, she turns to the baby’s father for help and agrees to marry him, moving to the small, rural town of Hickory, North Carolina. Tess’s new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides money from his new wife, and shows her no affection. Tess quickly realizes she’s trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out.The people of Hickory love and respect Henry but see Tess as an outsider, treating her with suspicion and disdain. When one of the town’s golden girls dies in a terrible accident, everyone holds Tess responsible. But Henry keeps his secrets even closer now, though it seems that everyone knows something about him that Tess does not. When a sudden polio epidemic strikes Hickory, the townspeople band together to build a polio hospital. Tess knows she is needed and defies Henry’s wishes to begin working at there. Through this work, she begins to find purpose and meaning. Yet at home, Henry’s actions grow more alarming by the day. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she untangle the truth behind her husband’s mysterious behavior and find the love—and the life—she was meant to have?

Close to Home


Suzanne Ferrell - 2012
    I’m Lorna Doone. Yep, spelled just like the cookie and I own the Peaches ‘N Cream Café here in Weston. You might think nothing much happens in a small mid-western town, but as my friend Harriett says, things aren’t always what they appear. Take our girl Emma for example…”Emma Lewis has a lot on her plate. The single mother of two precocious twin boys and an aging mother who is having trouble getting through each day, the last thing Emma needs is a man in her life, especially a doctor. So when the town’s doctor goes on vacation and his handsome nephew takes over, Emma is shocked to not only find him standing in her bedroom, but accusing her of being a neglectful parent.Clint Preston came to Westen for the year to fill in as the town doc while his uncle took a long needed vacation. Clint also needed a sense of peace and calm to try to find his passion for medicine burned out by long shifts in an urban hospital’s ER. Angered to find two boys in his clinic with broken wrists and no accompanying parent, he is determined to confront their mother. The feisty redhead he meets quickly dispels his belief that she’s a neglectful mother, but he can see her situation is more critical than she wishes to face and finds himself volunteering to help care for her sons and the remodeling of her home.As Emma and Clint forge a relationship among the slightly off-beat characters that inhabit Weston a menace from Emma’s past threatens her and her sons. Clint and Emma join forces to prevent the loss of either boy and the love they’ve discovered in each other’s’ arms.

Hot Property


Susanne O'Leary - 2013
    But the house is a wreck that requires a fortune to restore, and she decides to sell it. An easy choice, were it not for the discovery of an old family scandal and a budding love affair with both the beautiful landscape and a handsome Kerryman. Catapulted into country life and faced with the less romantic side of farming, she also has to deal with a conspiracy to make her leave.

It All Started with a Lima Bean


Kimi Flores - 2013
    It must be gifted freely.Abby Sullivan cherishes the life she is creating for herself in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. She adores her best friend and supportive family. Her job as a kindergarten teacher offers her life hope and purpose. She is very talented at many things, especially hiding the pain of her past. That is until her world collides with Caleb Hunter’s, giving them both a lesson in forgiveness and love.A life changing love is cruelly snatched by sickness and death. A person must be willing to give love, the greatest gift of all, to receive love.A successful writer, Caleb is living life day-to-day. Giving refuge to his sad and lonely heart since his wife's sudden death from cervical cancer, his primary focus becomes honoring her memory by rearing their five-year-old daughter, Madison. Yet, when Madison Hunter walks into Miss Abby’s kindergarten class, everything changes for all three of them.With a little nudge from a loving mother-in-law who has everyone’s best interest at heart, anything is possible, especially when forgiveness and love gift even more blessings than ever imaginable.**This is book 1 in the Intertwined Hearts series. Each book in the series follows a different couple and they can each be read as stand alones**