Book picks similar to
Before That Night by Violet Duke


romance
contemporary-romance
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A Perfect Mess


Zoe Dawson - 2012
    He was always the unpredictable one, the one who would be brash enough to make it big self-publishing horror novels on the internet. He promised never to tell, but everyone knows you can never trust an Outlaw.Then a year later, in the middle of the night, she receives a phone call at Tulane. Her aunt, who took her in after her mother’s death, is in a coma under suspicious circumstances. Now she has to face that one person who knows all about what she did that summer—sexy Booker. Returning to Hope Parish to be with her aunt, stirs up all those ugly memories. When Aubree starts getting threats, she can’t help but wonder if what she did last summer was tied to her aunt’s “accident.” Afraid, she turns to the only person who knows the truth and Booker doesn’t hesitate to offer his broad shoulder for her to lean on. But Booker has a secret of his own that could crush their fledgling relationship.As the hot, sultry summer days move on, she finds that even a perfectly smart girl can lose her heart to a perfectly bad boy. What is she going to do when someone starts asking questions Aubree doesn’t want to answer? She’s knee deep into a terribly dangerous, wholly life changing, who-can-she-really-depend-on perfect mess.A Perfect Series: Three perfect girls, three perfect secrets, one unholy trinityA Perfect Mess, Book #1 – the girl most likely to succeed, an unpredictable Outlaw, and a dangerous secret that could be the death of her.A Perfect Mistake, Book #2 – A preacher’s daughter, a reckless Outlaw, and a secret that will change her life forever.A Perfect Dilemma, Book #3 – The town’s poor little rich girl, a sweet-talking Outlaw, and a secret that will ruin all that she holds dear

If the Shoe Fits


Laurie LeClair - 2013
    All she wants is her late father's dream to come true by making his beloved King's Department Store thrive again. However, her stepmother has other ideas. Charlie agrees to help her stepmother find grooms for her sheltered stepsisters. In exchange, the stepmother will release her stronghold on the store's budget. After all, one good deed deserves another, right? But, Charlie has no idea what her heart's in for when... Alexander (Alex) Royale, dubbed by society newspapers as Prince Charming, arrives for dinner to meet the all-female King family. His ailing grandparents yearn for his marriage and then the baby carriage. Well, that and running the family company. Having unsuccessfully searched for months, Alex doesn't hold out any hope in finding his future bride among the King sisters. However, all his expectations, including his idea of a business-like marriage of convenience, vanish the moment Charlie crashes into him. When Alex sets out out to win over Charlotte, he has no idea he has to bargain with the stepmother, secretly buy the store, court Charlotte after the wedding, and, oh yeah, be featured in Charlie's new fairy tale ad campaign, The Charmings, based on them. Can a guy ever get a break? The couple never factored in falling in love with each other. Now, faced with losing all their families ever wanted, Charlie and Alex must choose: Do they live their families' dreams or do they finally live their own?

Crash into Me


K.M. Scott - 2013
    And he wore it all so well. From the moment his mesmerizing gaze met mine, I had no choice but surrender to everything he was. His power. His decadence. His passion. He was all I never knew I needed. He wanted to possess me, and I wanted to be his everything. All I had to do was accept what he offered. But everything has a price. The world he gave me fulfilled my wildest dreams, but would that be enough when the past crashed into the present?

Bury the Hatchet


Catherine Gayle - 2015
    Now he needs to prove to the watchful eyes that he’s changed for the better. But cozying up to Little-Miss-Perfect-Gone-Bad isn’t his idea of making amends.Agreeing to marry a hockey star to clear her “bad girl” reputation is the worst idea Oklahoma’s former sweetheart, Tallulah Belle Roth, has ever heard. With cameras constantly in their faces, Hunter and Tallie need to prove their sickeningly-sweet, do-good lives are the real deal—just to Bury the Hatchet once and for all.But when the cameras are off, desire burns hot. Can fake and just for show turn into something real and forever?

Find Her, Keep Her, A Martha's Vineyard Love Story


Z.L. Arkadie - 2015
    It's addictive romance reading that gets more satisfying as you journey further into these characters experience. Book one of the LOVE in the USA series features Daisy Blanchard and Belmont (Jack) Lord. Don't be surprised by the hot and fast start, Daisy and Belmont have a lot to learn about love, and here is where their education begins. It was one intense week in late October. I probably should've slowed our pace but I wasn't thinking clearly. I had just learned my boyfriend and best friend were engaged via a Facebook post, which left me heartbroken and wrestling with ghosts from my past.But Belmont Lord was so convincing and uninhibited, unlike me. He also had demons of his own. We threw caution to the wind. Could fate had picked a more perfect time and place for two people to meet?Yes, it was one steamy and surprising week, but was it long enough to make us last forever?Find Her, Keep Her: A Martha's Vineyard Love Story is the first sexy, sensual and addictive contemporary romance in the LOVE in the USA series by author, Z.L. Arkadie.This manuscript has been updated as of 6/18/2017. Sex scenes are still frequent but they are no longer written in graphic detail. Also, some of the details that were hard to swallow have been made palatable. Although, do realize that I had chosen to write two imperfect human beings. In later books, as they choose to make their relationship work, they also choose to resolve their personal issues. After all that is the theme of the LOVE in the USA series--true love, real love is another catalyst in life which helps evolve two people for the better. So I write love stories more than romance, and from book one through twelve of this series, you will be able to read the difference. Visit zlarkadiebooks.com to learn more about the author.

Schooled


Piper Lawson - 2015
    Hot.I know the rules.The rules say Dylan Cameron is off-limits. That includes his messy dark hair and wickedly knowing eyes. The hard body he built playing rugby. Definitely his reputation for doing very bad things.But when the most gorgeous, mysterious, brooding boy I never let myself want shows up on my birthday with a confession that sends me reeling... I can’t ignore him.But I refuse to screw up everything over a guy. Especially that guy.Because Dylan is my best friend’s brother.Her younger brother.Schooled is a deliciously smart, steamy forbidden college romance from USA Today bestselling author Piper Lawson. This full-length story can be enjoyed as a standalone.

Texas Secrets


Jean Brashear - 1999
    The only place he's ever thought of as home now belongs to a woman who doesn't want it, and he must keep her there for thirty days—or it will be lost to them both.

More Than Pancakes


Christine DePetrillo - 2014
    Her nights are filled with the glitz and glamour of upscale parties. Until her grandmother dies and leaves Lily property in wretched Vermont. The woods mean only one thing to Lily—nightmares. When Utopia wants the land for development, Lily is forced to travel to a place she’d rather forget. Rick Stannard makes maple syrup and builds barns in the peace and quiet of picturesque Vermont. Noisy New York City nearly killed him a few years back, and now he lives a calm, simple life with his coyote, Poe, and his beloved book collection. It’s the only way he’s guaranteed to wake up each morning. When Lily marches her expensive boots onto Rick’s land and proposes turning it into a mega resort, the serenity of the woods is shattered. Lily always closes a deal. Rick never intends to sell. They’ll need to compromise, or someone else will do it for them. Someone who is not afraid of the woods or the city. Or spilling a little blood.

Father Found


Judith Arnold - 1997
    Never did he expect to find the unplanned result of that fling - a healthy, wailing baby named Samantha - strapped into a car seat on his back porch, along with a suitcase full of diapers and infant apparel and a note informing Jamie that he’s her father.Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. But first things first. He’s never fed a baby or changed a diaper in his life. He doesn’t own a crib or a stroller. In a panic, he phones the nearest hospital, where neonatal nurse Allison Winslow takes his call and tells him about a class she teaches called the Daddy School.Classes on how to be a dad are exactly what Jamie needs. But when he attends his first class and sees the tall, earnest, amazingly beautiful and even more amazingly competent Allison, he realizes that he might just need more from her than her lectures on how to hold a baby.Jamie’s efforts to be a father to this precious baby touch Allison. His sense of humor amuses her. His striking good looks turn her on. But how can she trust the sort of guy who’d sleep with a stranger on vacation, without giving a thought to the consequences? How can she give her heart to such a reckless man?

Be My Love


Lucy Kevin - 2014
    and five beautiful, close-knit sisters who are each about to find their one true love.After four years on the Seattle mainland, when Hanna Walker returns to Walker Island to make a documentary about the infamous Peterson-Walker feud from the early 1950s, she’s shocked to realize that passions still run high. Especially when it comes to Joel Peterson, the one man who is totally off-limits… but that she’s never been able to stop dreaming about. The last thing Joel wants is for Hanna to dredge up the past, but when he realizes she’s determined to follow through with her documentary no matter what, he knows he has no choice but to join her. But despite vowing to hold back his growing feelings for her, as Joel works with Hanna to unravel the mystery of what really happened between their two families, he soon begins to see that love is an unstoppable force… and that sometimes two people are meant to be. BE MY LOVE is the first fun, sweet, and emotional contemporary romance in the Walker Island series from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Lucy Kevin.

When Love Comes


J.H. Croix - 2014
    Once wild and impulsive, she shut her heart off to love and adventure after her parents died. When she meets Luke Winters, their immediate attraction is overwhelming.Burned once before, Luke has committed himself to nothing but casual dalliances with women. Rugged and smoldering, he finds no shortage of women happy to oblige. When Hannah comes along, he questions what he might be missing. Both fight the depth of their feelings—love is not part of the plan.Hannah’s sense of identity is shaken when she unearths a surprising truth about her family. Meanwhile, Luke’s interfering family and complications from his past challenge Hannah and Luke to face their true feelings for each other. Can two people who don’t believe love is worth the risk find the courage to face their fears and open their hearts?

Read, Write, Love at Seaside


Addison Cole - 2014
    He spends twelve hours a day in front of his computer, rarely leaving the seclusion of his beach-front property, where he’s come to finish his latest thriller — that is, until free-spirited Leanna Bray nearly drowns in the ocean trying to save her dog. Kurt’s best-laid plans are shot when he comes to their rescue. Kurt’s as irritated as he is intrigued by the sexy, hot mess of a woman who lives life on a whim, forgets everything, and doesn’t even know the definition of the word organized.Leanna’s come to the Cape hoping to find a fulfilling career in the jam-making business, and until she figures out her own life, a man is not on the menu. But Leanna can’t get the six-two, deliciously muscled and tragically neat Kurt out of her mind. She tells herself she’s just stopping by to say thank you, but the heart-warming afternoon sparks an emotional and unexpectedly sweet ride as Kurt and Leanna test the powers of Chemistry 101: Opposites Attract.Read, Write, Love at Seaside is a Sweet with Heat novel and conveys all of the passion you'd expect to find between two people in love without any graphic scenes or harsh language. If you're looking for a spicier romance, pick up the steamy edition, Read, Write, Love, written by New York Times bestselling author Melissa Foster. Addison Cole is Melissa's sweet-romance pen name.

Charmed by the Bartender


Piper Rayne - 2017
    Probably not in retrospect. In my defense I had just moved back into my grandparent’s house, I’d lost my dream job, and a guy on Tinder had stood me up. It was like life had suddenly stamped ‘LOSER’ on my forehead. So when the guy behind the bar started giving me THE look…you know, the one that promised I’d be screaming his name into the wee hours of the morning? When that guy also has the perfect amount of scruff on his chiseled chin, biceps bulging out of his t-shirt, and a cocky grin you knew he’d earned in the sack…when he gives you that look, you don’t bother to figure out what your six degrees of separation are. You jump on that horse and ride it! Pun fully and completely intended. And accurate by the way. I fully admit to feeling sorry for myself and acting impulsively, but by the time I’d figured out WHO the bartender was, I was already falling for him.

No Weddings


Kat Bastion - 2014
     I think I have my act together as a successful bar owner, my master’s degree within reach, and a list of no-strings-attached women warming my bed. Turns out, I don’t. Hannah believes she has safeguarded her wounded heart by shunning men and focusing on her new baking business. The thing is, she hasn’t. When my three sisters and I start a new event-planning business with Hannah as our baker, I have no idea how my life is about to change. As Hannah and I work closely together, the attraction between us becomes irresistible. And complicated. I’ve promised my sisters I wouldn’t mix business with pleasure. But I’ve never been one to follow the rules. *** The No Weddings Series Release Dates *** No Weddings ~ Sep 8th One Funeral ~ Sep 29th Two Bar Mitzvahs ~ Oct 20th Three Christmases ~ Nov 17th

Sweet Girl


Cristin Harber - 2014
     Nicola Hart grew up under the heels of her older brother and his sexy best friend, Cash Garrison. Years of ignoring her spark with Cash has transformed their friendship into a slow burning sizzle. One night with him could ruin everything. Or it could be more than she ever dreamed. They play. They flirt. But they haven't crossed the line because too much is at stake. Family. Friendship. And the deepest kind of love that she'd have to be crazy to walk away from. She's his best friend's little sister. The definition of hands off. Cash has tried to ignore her for years. Those innocent eyes and her smile that screams kiss-me-if-you-dare... Instead, he's looked at every pretty little thing who's crossed his path, all to ignore the girl he seems destined to want. But when his hard partying ways get old and everyone at school is interested in Nicola, it's time to stake a claim. To make Nicola his girl, no matter the risks, and hold the hand of the one he really loves.