Book picks similar to
Toxic Girl by Chantal Fernando
new-adult
romance
college
contemporary-romance
Lost in Us
Layla Hagen - 2014
But when her boyfriend of six years abruptly leaves her, she’s catapulted back into pain, nursing a broken heart. When indulging in mountains of chocolate doesn’t work, Serena decides the best way to deal with her shattered heart is to indulge in something else. A rebound... The night she swaps her usual Sprite for tequila, she meets James. The encounter is breathtaking.Electrifying.And best not repeated. James is a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. A man who has amassed a fortune by taking risks. A man who has shunned commitment completely, and still does. He’s the exact opposite of Serena. But sometimes opposites attract. Sometimes they give in to burning passion. Sometimes opposites are perfect for each other. James is everything her damaged soul could want. His kisses are intoxicating, his touch out of this world. He makes her forget. He grants her peace from her pain. But as they grow closer, Serena discovers she isn’t the only one with a past. James carries the scars of a past much darker than hers. One that has left him damaged, hurt, and wary of love. A past that gives him the power to shatter her. Now James and Serena must find a way to mend one another. Or risk losing each other forever.
The Arrangement: The Ferro Family
H.M. Ward - 2013
Just when she doesn't think things could get any worse, they do. When her car stalls out at a busy intersection and she gets out to check under the hood, a guy steals her car. Armed with a dress and a pair of Chucks, Avery runs after the thief. When a hot stranger offers to help, she can't say no. That's how Avery meets Sean Ferro, the totally sexy, totally damaged guy with more secrets than she has time for.Avery doesn't have time for anything anymore. Her is life falling apart and it's not just the car. It's everything, and it doesn't matter how tightly she tries to hold on, there's nothing left to hold on to. With the sudden death of her parents, it's only a matter of months until Avery's shot at college is gone, and she's living in a cardboard box. Other students have their families to rely on when things get bad. Avery has no one. But there's one option, one incredibly sexy, morally devoid, option. If Avery takes a job as a call girl, one guy could save her. One client. One time. She just has to say yes.
The Mister
E.L. James - 2019
Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. With his good looks, aristocratic connections, and money, he’s never had to work and he’s rarely slept alone. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. It’s a role he’s not prepared for and one that he struggles to face. But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. Reticent, beautiful, and musically gifted, she’s an alluring mystery, and Maxim’s longing for her deepens into a passion that he’s never experienced and dares not name. Just who is Alessia Demachi? Can Maxim protect her from the malevolence that threatens her? And what will she do when she learns that he’s been hiding secrets of his own? From the heart of London through wild, rural Cornwall to the bleak, forbidding beauty of the Balkans, The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the reader breathless to the very last page.
Thoughtless
S.C. Stephens - 2009
When they head off to a new city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen obligation forces the happy couple apart.Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source—a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he's purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes... and none of them will ever be the same.
Waiting for You
Shey Stahl - 2013
Everything about her life has been organized and lived out to the expectations set of her parents. She is the class valedictorian, has perfect grades, the perfect friends, a perfect boyfriend, basically perfect life...or so everyone thought. That's when she realizes the path planned isn't always the path chosen. On graduation day she makes a decision. One that changes everything she thought she knew about her intended future.On a whim, she runs away with the town rebel, Dylan Wade, in search of the unknown.Dylan Wade isn't looking to run away from anything.He knows what he wants as he's been waiting on it for years.On a journey to find the unknown, they discover a friendship they once knew along the open highway and have not a care in the world. Between the yellow and white lines of the heated summer asphalt, a spark draws them together as Dylan's past and Bailey future try to rip them apart.Could it be that Dylan and his GTO are exactly what her perfectly planned life needs?
Fearless
Devon Hartford - 2013
to laid back San Diego, Samantha Smith hopes to shed her troubled past and reinvent herself as a freshman at San Diego University. Her parents are pressuring her to major in Accounting, because it’s the safe thing to do. But Samantha really wants to try something more adventurous, and secretly dreams of ditching the business major to study Art instead. When she crosses paths with a handsome tattoo-clad bad boy, her life is turned upside down, and Samantha finds herself with more adventure than she ever dreamed possible.Content Warning: Due to sexual situations and strong language, this novel may not be appropriate for readers under 18.
Wrecked
Emily Snow - 2014
She exists but doesn’t live, and she copes the only way she knows how: by wrecking things.She exposes her dad’s affairs, ends things with her longtime boyfriend, and just last semester she destroyed her music scholarship. Desperate to break away from all the destruction she’s caused and start over, Evie reinvents herself at her new university. But then Rhys, her new voice instructor, happens. He’s gorgeous, insanely talented and a part of the dark past she’s trying to overcome. Rhys’s brother is the reason why Evie's life is such a mess right now, the reason why Lily, Evie's sister, is dead. Even though Rhys is the last person Evie should ever want, for the first time in two years, wrecking things seems…right.
Beautiful Oblivion
Jamie McGuire - 2014
She has held down a job since before she could drive, and moved into her own apartment after her freshman year of college. Now tending bar at The Red Door, Cami doesn’t have time for much else besides work and classes, until a trip to see her boyfriend is cancelled, leaving her with a first weekend off in almost a year.Trenton Maddox was the king of Eastern State University, dating co-eds before he even graduated high school. His friends wanted to be him, and women wanted to tame him, but after a tragic accident turned his world upside down, Trenton leaves campus to come to grips with the crushing guilt. Eighteen months later, Trenton is living at home with his widower father, and works full-time at a local tattoo parlor to help with the bills. Just when he thinks his life is returning to normal, he notices Cami sitting alone at a table at The Red. As the baby sister of four rowdy brothers, Cami believes she’ll have no problem keeping her new friendship with Trenton Maddox strictly platonic. But when a Maddox boy falls in love, he loves forever—even if she is the only reason their already broken family could fall apart.
My Side
Tara Brown - 2013
Sometimes it’s where you find Mr. Random shacked up and sprawled out on what was supposed to be your new bed.Between the bear spray and the handcuffs, she discovers a terrible mistake has been made.Lochlan hasn't broken into her new home to sleep with a seedy barmaid...he owns half.With emotions running on high, Erin is determined to tough it out until a solution can be found.The tight quarters seem smaller with his accumulated clutter and bizarre sleeping schedule. It also doesn't help that he's the new lead singer for Thin Ice, an indie band on its rise to fame.What happens when a quiet bookworm gets stuck with a relentless rocker?What happens when the things you see are not the things you get?
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.
Dangerous to Know & Love
Jane Harvey-Berrick - 2013
Moody, with an explosive temper, closed off and sullen, he’s also beautiful, tatted in delicious ways, with a pierced eyebrow and spiky black hair. It’s rumoured he has piercings in other places, too. Is he really mad, bad and dangerous to know?Daniel lives with his older brother, Zef, and their home is party central. You want drugs, a good time, liquor, no questions asked? Colton’s is the place to go.When Daniel and good girl Lisanne Maclaine have to work together on an assignment, Lisanne finds there’s a lot more to the college’s bad boy than his reputation. He’s intelligent and funny and good company. And then she discovers his secret, why he’s so closed off to everyone, and determined to keep people at arms’ length. But being his secret-keeper is harder than she ever dreamed.Recommended for readers 18+ due to sexual references and sex scenes, some coarse language, drug references and drug use.Word Count: 154,726
Pole Dance
J.A. Hornbuckle - 2012
She's working four menial jobs to make ends meet and supplement her half-ride scholarship at the University where she's determined to get her degree in four years as her parents had planned. But it's hard to find time to study, much less sleep, when you've got so much going on. Overhearing her lab partner describing her Pole Dancing job at the Fuego Club and how much she gets paid and tipped, Caitlin decides to apply.Expecting to interview with a middle-aged mafia-type, troglodyte, Caitlin was shocked to find her interview was with the young, smoking hot, co-owner, Jake Stanton. He soon discovers that Caitlin is not suited as a dancer for the Fuego's, but is definitely suited for him especially when he has first hand evidence of how she is treated by one of her bosses and a bank president that makes a visit to her apartment after banking hours.He is further intrigued when he receives a background check on her and discovers that she was exactly who she said she was--a starving student with no living family, struggling to meet commitments of work and school. In his business, that kind of honesty is rare and he is completely captivated.Jake begins a campaign to win Cait's heart, but she is so fiercely independent that he has trouble breaking down her walls. She views his help as 'trying to take over' and tries to resist him at every turn. It doesn't help when she is accosted by a jealous ex-lover who says that Jake will try and buy his way into her bed. His efforts are further hampered by a distrustful business partner, a serial killer who's victims are current or former dancers of Fuego's, and Floyd, the cat.Through all this can the world-weary Jake convince the naïve but independent Caitlin that sharing his life doesn't mean giving up hers?Pole Dance is the first in the Dance series and is intended for mature readers only. Graphic language and detailed sexual situations.
Blue Notes: A Book Club Recommendation!
Carrie Lofty - 2014
Stephens, a sizzling new adult novel featuring the tumultuous relationship between a young piano prodigy and a reluctant billionaire playboy—set against the vibrant backdrop of a New Orleans college campus.After being bounced from foster family to foster family, Keeley, a talented pianist, is ready to start over as a junior at Tulane. But when she plays a small concert that attracts the attention of Jude, a brooding playboy and heir to an enormous fortune in the wake of his parents’ tragic death, suddenly Keeley’s life is thrown off balance once again.Jude is the first person to confront her about the pain behind her music, and she struggles with whether or not to let him into her life, or to keep protecting herself from the hurt that relationships have caused her in the past. But Keeley’s about to learn that the melancholy young billionaire who appears to have everything he wants can open her eyes to exactly what she needs…
Lengths
Steph Campbell - 2012
She promptly finds a job at a tattoo parlor, a craptastic first apartment, and one friend—Ryan—who is a little less friend, a little more benefits. Deo Beckett is a soulful surfer with a passion for tattoos and beautiful women. On the eve of his twenty-second birthday, he finds himself living with his grandfather, recently unemployed, and seriously adrift. He doesn’t know much about what he wants out of life, but he does know his current situation isn't cutting it. When Deo meets Whit, she’s all sexy makeup and fierce, smart-ass fun. It doesn’t take him long to see past her tough shell. And when he gets a good look at what's under all the superficial stuff that usually gets his attention, it leaves Deo wondering if there might be more to life than living fast and free. Too bad Whit has a past she doesn't plan on sharing—no matter how hot Deo is. She might want him, but she knows better than to let her guard down. Deo falls for Whit, and falls hard. But everything about her, down to that mysterious tattoo and the way she thrashes in her sleep, tells him that the girl he loves is hiding something. And the more he pushes for answers, the more Whit pulls away. Having your guard up is one thing, but are the lengths Whit goes to to protect her secret worth throwing away the second chance she has at happiness with Deo? LENGTHS is a Contemporary New Adult Romance to be released August 2012.
Emerge
S.E. Hall - 2013
And though change is an inevitable, scary part of life, just lying in wait around the corners and milestones you thought you had a lock on, there's no way I could've known just how much change, that would never change back, I was driving right toward. But... by shutting the door to my old life, the door to my new one opened- and in strolled Dane Kendrick, awakening the wildest of dreams, delights, and desires, that I never even knew slept inside me. And now, it's time to let the real Laney Jo Walker emerge.Evolve & Full Circle Series suggested reading order:*Emerge*Embrace*Entangled*Entice*Sawyer Beckett's Baby Mama Drama Guide for Dummies*Endure*Sawyer Beckett's Guide for Tools Looking to Date My Daughter*Entwined*Embody (Full Circle Series/Spinoff from Evolve Series Book One)*A Crew Christmas*Elusive (Full Circle Series/Princess Presley Duet Book One)*Exclusive (Full Circle Series/Princess Presley Duet Book Two)