Book picks similar to
Heart Thief by Ker Dukey
dark
dark-romance
romance
arc
Queen of Diamonds
Natalie Bennett - 2018
His partner. His whore.His mind games. Her morals.The road to hell...Well, there is no road to hell.I already live there.I was forced to partake in a rigged game of seduction, manipulation, and murder.Mateo Remmington is my formidable opponent.He makes the devil look like a saint.He’s immoral.He's ruthless.He's a goddamn king. King of a clandestine empire who sits on a throne covered in innocents’ blood.I’ve become his obsession.He’s becoming my deadly addiction.And if I make one wrong move he’ll end my life.
Hell and Back
Natasha Madison - 2016
Dating him was a mistake. Watching him become a drug addict put me through hell. Running was my only option.***I'm running from my demons and when I find out she's trying to escape her past, I know what I have to do.One broken cop. One woman fighting for her life. A fragile love.Sinister secrets that threaten to tear them apart.They've been to hell. The hard part will be finding their way back together.
The King
Skye Warren - 2017
My father gambles every night, falling deeper and deeper into debt. When he hits the bottom, he places a new bet: his daughter. I'm his entry bet to the biggest underground poker game. Every kind of danger circles the velvet-covered table, but only one man makes me tremble. A trailer park princess. The son of a criminal king. We don't belong together, but I'm caught in a twisted game. His eyes meet mine with dark promise. And when he puts down his cards, I know I'm going to lose more than my body. I'm going to lose everything.
Dark Shimmer
Donna Jo Napoli - 2015
A giant, a freak.Dolce is a princess. She walks like royalty—until dark shimmers make her fall.Dolce is a mamma. She has found her true family.Dolce is beautiful. But beauty can’t hide the monster inside.Dolce is the Wicked One.Set in medieval Venice, this captivating fairy tale retelling by award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli explores belonging, beauty, and the transformative power of love through the eyes of a teenage girl. Dolce has grown up hidden away on an island in a lagoon. She is a giant, a freak, tormented by everyone but her loving mother. She spends her time learning the valuable secret of making mirrors. Following a tragedy, Dolce swims away and lands on an island where people see her as normal, even beautiful. Marin, a kind widower, and his little daughter bring Dolce to live with them in their grand palazzo. Eventually, Dolce and Marin marry. She secretly continues to make mirrors, not realizing that quicksilver endangers her . . . and so evil begins in innocence.
Heartless
Marissa Meyer - 2016
A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen.Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.In her first stand-alone teen novel, the New York Times-bestselling author dazzles us with a prequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella's Stepmother
Danielle Teller - 2018
Or do we?As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, a woman who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. But what unfolds is not the princess's history. The tale Agnes recounts is her own.A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress’s apprentice at Aviceford Manor when she is just ten years old. Alone, friendless, and burdened with a grueling workload, Agnes carves a place for herself in this cold place that is home to Sir Emont Vis-de-Loup, a melancholic and capricious drunkard. Using her wits and ingenuity, Agnes eventually escapes and makes her way toward a hopeful future, serving as a housemaid for the powerful Abbess Elfilda. But life once again holds unexpected, sometimes heartbreaking twists that lead Agnes back to Aviceford Manor, where she becomes nursemaid to Ella, Emont's sensitive, otherworldly daughter. Though she cares for Ella, Agnes struggles to love this child, who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, ultimately, the celebrated princess who embodies all our unattainable fantasies. Familiar yet fresh, tender as well as bittersweet, the story of Agnes and Ella's relationship reveals that beauty is not always desirable, that love may take on many guises, and that freedom is not always something we can choose.Danielle Teller's All the Ever Afters challenges our assumptions and forces us to reevaluate what we think we know. Exploring the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, this lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceptive novel shows us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound—and ultimately more precious—truth about our lives than the ideal of “happily ever after.”