Book picks similar to
Last Chance by Lauren Runow


romance
arc
second-chance
contemporary-romance

When Forever Changes


Siobhan Davis - 2018
    Perhaps I did, but I subconsciously chose to ignore them. From the time I was ten, when I first met Dylan, I knew he was my forever guy. Back then, I couldn’t put words to what I was feeling, but, as the years progressed, I came to recognize it for what it was—soul-deep love. The kind only very few people ever get to experience. Dylan was more than just my best friend, my childhood sweetheart, my lover. He was my soul mate. We were carved from the same whole—destined to be together forever. Until he changed. And I believed I was no longer good enough. Until he shattered me so completely, it felt like I ceased to exist. And I’d never experienced such heart-crushing pain. Until he leveled me a second time, and I truly wanted to die. But I had to stay strong because I wasn’t alone in this cruel twist of fate. I look to the sky, pleading with the stars, begging someone to tell me what I should do because I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how to cope when my forever has changed, and I can’t help wondering if I had seen the signs earlier, if I’d pushed him, would it have been enough to save us? Or had fate already decided to alter our forever? Due to mature content and potential triggers this book is only recommended to readers over the age of eighteen.

For Lucy


Jewel E. Ann - 2021
    Ann comes a novel so heartfelt and real it redefines the meaning of love. I’m the wrong guy in the right place the night I steal Tatum Bradshaw from another man. When she mistakes me for her blind date, I decide she deserves a man who shows up on time … like me. Emmett Riley, Mr. Punctual. Once I confess my true identity and convince her I’m not a creep—just a thief—it’s only a matter of time before my sexy smile and quick wit claim her heart, her hand in marriage, and the perfect life. Unfortunately, perfection is an illusion, like the promises of our wedding vows. No one can prepare for the unimaginable—the heartbreaking exception to all the rules in life.When thirty seconds destroys everything, I have to find a new existence and keep my promise to always love our daughter, Lucy, the most. For Lucy, I will keep a secret, and I will watch my wife drift into the arms of another man.Given the chance … can I reclaim my wife and the pieces of our life?

The Long Way Home


Jasinda Wilder - 2017
    For you. For touch. For a kiss. For the scrape of your hand down my stomach. For the slide of your lips across my hipbone. The sweep of your thigh against mine in the dulcet, drowning darkness. For the warm huff of your breath on my skin and the wet suck of your mouth around me and the building pressure of need reaching release...I am mad with need.Wild with it.I cannot have you. I have lost you, as I have lost myself. And so I go in search. Of myself, and thus the man who might return to you, and take you in his arms.I loathe each of the thousands of miles between us, but I cannot wish them away, for I hope at the end of my journey I shall find you. Or rather, find myself, and thus…you. Myself, and thus us. I am taking the long way home, Ava. ***Christian,I’m losing my mind, and I don’t know how to stop it. I shouldn’t be writing to you, but I am. I’m friendless, loveless, and lifeless. You’re out there somewhere, and still you’re all I really have. I hate my reliance and dependence on you, emotionally and otherwise, and that reliance is something I’m coming to recognize. I hate that I can’t hate you as much as I want to. I hate that I still love you so much. I hate that there’s no clear solution to our conundrum. Even if we could forgive each other, what then? I hate you, Christian. I really do.But most of all, I don’t. It’s complicated. Complicatedly (still) yours,AvaTHE LONG WAY HOME is the story of a married couple, Christian and Ava, both writers, as they cope with the loss of their son and the damage that loss causes to their marriage. This moving story, alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming, is the first in a brand-new contemporary romance series by bestselling author Jasinda Wilder.

Forgiving Reed


C.A. Harms - 2014
    She had no choice but to move forward and give her son the best life she could. Which meant moving back home. Except there was one problem.Home was where Reed would be...The man who once held her heart, then shattered it into a million pieces. Grieving the loss of Rhetts dad, and learning to forgive those who have betrayed her, Kori was battling it all.But will she ever have the strength to forgive Reed?

All We Were


Elisabeth Grace - 2019
    I’ve finally crossed the line.Even if he knew my reason for doing this, he’d never forgive me.He always puts my needs before his own.Now it’s my turn to protect him.None of that matters though because the betrayal and disgust in his eyes comes from deep within his soul. There’s no coming back from this.He will forever be tormented by what he’s seen, and he will never forgive me.The last fragment of my heart to hold out hope that we’d share a future, withers and dies.

Conviction


Lesley Jones - 2015
    Our love unquestioned. Our futures planned. But she didn't show. All that we had, all that we meant, and after all that was said, she just didn't show. That one act by her changed everything, but it especially changed me and from that moment on, there was no going back. No words of love, no whispered promises, just sex and drugs and rock and roll. No one gets a piece of Reed, but what they will get is the night of their life, the chance to let go, break their own rules and enjoy the best, the dirtiest, filthiest sex ever... Along with the other four people in my bed.I thought he loved me, I believed everything he said, every promise that he made but then, when I needed him more than I'd needed anyone in my life, when I was at my most vulnerable, he let me down. He chose to take a different path and leave me to pick up the pieces of my now broken life. I was changed forever and chose the easy option, letting others take charge of my destiny, until once again, I'm let down in the cruelest of ways. Dirty filthy sex.Love.Heartbreak. Betrayal. High emotion. And a bit more sex.

The Hard Way


Katie Ashley - 2016
    Because of his talent at football, coupled with his father’s wealth, he’s always gotten his way. But when a night of drunken debauchery lands him in hot water with the college athletic board, neither his influential father nor his charming grin can save him. He finds it a total buzz kill when he is sentenced to community service with troubled youth at an inner-city shelter. But his nightmare is only beginning when his greatest high school regret is the very one in charge of the program, and she has him by the balls in more ways than one.For Avery Prescott, senior year was a nightmare of epic proportions, and Cade Hall played the lead villain. After she fled her small town for college in the bright lights of Atlanta, she thought she had escaped the painful memories of her past. She never could have imagined Cade would waltz through the door of the outreach program she presided over. But Avery has news for Cade--she isn’t the same shy, doormat of a girl she was in high school. Since she holds Cade's football future in her hands, she’s more than ready to make payback a real bitch.Will the two stay in the defensive zone or discover that sometimes life's greatest lessons are learned the hard way?

Chasing the Moon


S.M. Soto - 2020
    A love like theirs was never destined to last. Selene Drake has always been the girl that blends into the background.The wallflower.Quiet.Unnoticed.Sweet as can be.It never bothered her, she preferred slinking into the shadows.When she first laid eyes on Endymion Black, she fell irrevocably in love with him.The bad boy.Cold.Distant.Handsome as ever.For years, she pined after the unattainable boy who had somehow burrowed his way into her heart.Until everything changed.One unforgettable night bridled with passion and forbidden lust destroyed her naïve heart and reshaped her innocent soul. It sent her fleeing from the only town she’d ever truly known.Six years later, Selene is back in Dunsmuir and the boy she spent years loving in silence, has now turned into a man. A man with his sights set on her. Somehow, the tables have turned, and this time around, he’s the one doing the chasing, determined to claim her heart as his. Only, he doesn’t realize, she has a secret of her own. One with the potential to change their lives forever.Chasing the Moon is a full-length standalone romance with a guaranteed HEA.

The Hysterics


Kristen Hope Mazzola - 2015
    Rock and roll, drugs, and bad decisions were the life I lived. I'd fallen so deep into the dark rabbit hole that I was certain I would never make it out alive. People like me didn't get second chance. People like me didn't get lifted from the darkness. So when the opportunity showed up, I had to take it. I walked away from everything I loved, everything that was killing me, and I became Fae Dunham. After that, I had behind makeup, long sleeves, and a closed-off heart. All was well until I met Dane Pearson. He wasn't convinced of the new me, and whenever he was near, I felt like the old me, the real me, filled with passion and a love for music. Every day was a fight to not fall back down the rabbit hole. And every day, somehow, I slowly began to discover what it meant to fin myself. It was a hysteric rise, but it was ours. And I wouldn't change a thing. From the Author **18+ for sexual situations, language, and adult content.** This book is a standalone! In the Crashing Series there are some character overlaps with The Hysterics, so after you fall in love with Dane and Fallon in The Hysterics, you can see what they're up to a few years in the future in Crashing Back Down

The Crush


Penelope Ward - 2021
    And for as long as I could remember, I’d secretly wanted my brother’s best friend, Jace.He was six years older and always treated me like the sister he never had.Fast forward a decade.We were all in our twenties now. Jace had moved in with my brother, Nathan, and me to help us make ends meet after our parents died. It was just the three of us—an odd family dynamic. Living under our roof, Jace was as bossy and protective as ever. But he certainly didn’t look at me like a sister anymore. That was what made things so complicated. I was pretty much hot and bothered twenty-four-seven. And he was torn.The signs were subtle, at first. Like on movie night, I’d casually rest my leg against his, and he wouldn’t exactly shift away.Still, I assumed he would never…go there.Nathan would kill us.The knowledge of that wasn’t enough to stop the inevitable, though.Eventually our slow burn exploded. But more than the physical attraction, we’d developed a strong connection. We just couldn’t get caught, right?That sounded simple.Until it wasn’t.This is a story of forbidden love, broken trust, and an unexpected second chance.

When the Stars Fall


Emery Rose - 2020
    My best friend. Fiercest ally. The most annoying boy in the world.At eighteen, the boy I loved to hate became the man I couldn’t live without.We were young. Madly in love. Invincible. Strong enough to weather any storm.Cocky enough to believe that no amount of time or distance could destroy us.When Jude finally returned home from overseas, it should have been cause for celebration. But the man I’d fallen in love with was gone, and in his place was someone I no longer recognized.𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛’𝑡 𝑑𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑. 𝐼’𝑚 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑦.Now, after six long years he’s back. Only my heart ... it doesn’t beat just for him anymore.

The Bet


J.L. Beck - 2019
    “Yeah, so was I but you seem to have forgotten that part of your life.” The bet was simple. You draw a name from the hat. That’s the girl you have to seduce. The girl you have to make fall head over heels in love with you. It wasn’t hard for me to do, in fact, it was something I did all the time. I was known for breaking hearts. Sex was just that, sex. And it didn’t take me very long to get a woman on her back. And then I drew her name: Jules Peterson. My former best friend. My first kiss. My first love. She shattered my heart into a million pieces three years ago. She left me right when I needed her most. And as fate who have it, she had entered my life once again, at almost the perfect time. She was a transfer, fresh meat, and she had just put a target on her back. It was my turn to make her pay. It was my turn to break her heart. Holding onto that hate, that anger, that f*cking heartbreak. It does something to you. It breaks you, and it broke me, it tainted me, just like I would do to Jules. She used to be my everything, but now she was nothing but The Bet. **The Bet is book one in the North Woods University series. It is a full length, standalone, novel. It contains adult themes, and content not suitable for all readers. It is NOT a young adult novel.**Dear Reader, We're so happy that you are thinking about reading our newest book The Bet. We hope you enjoy it to your fullest and we cannot wait to read your reviews on it. However, we wanted to leave a little note to warn readers with sensitivity to dubious content, sexual themes, and verbal abuse. For those readers, this book may not be a good read for them. We also would like to say that while the book is entirely fiction we know that abuse, sexual, physical, and verbal is a very real thing in our world and that we do NOT condone any behavior of that nature nor do we think that it's okay to treat someone that way. Just like the makers of gory horror movies dont actually want people to be brutally murdered, we do not want anyone to be bullied or abused in any way.Again, this is fiction and while we don't always agree with the things our fictional characters do, sometimes it works for a story line. As writers, it is our job to draw out real emotions. Sometimes we will make you fall in love with a character and other times we might have you yelling at the book. With love, J.L. Beck & C. Hallman

A Beautiful Kind of Love


Ellie Wade - 2015
    Why? Because I have one and his name is Jax Porter.I have known Jax my whole life and I have loved him with every breath I’ve ever taken. The fact that we were born a mere month apart to mothers that are best friends has made us inseparable since birth.What we have is so rare, one would think our story would be written, our fate sealed. But, unfortunately that’s not how life works. Life offers us many choices that can turn destiny into chance.I now find myself heading toward a destination that I could have never imagined and I have to figure out where to go from here. Will the choices that have been made change our path forever or will fate find its way?

Only You


Lacey Silks - 2017
     Sixteen years ago she was engaged to marry her soulmate. But Fate had other plans and tore them apart. In my darkest hour, when my fiancé was kidnapped, my current husband was the one who saved my life. He blessed me with two beautiful children and helped me grieve.I didn’t think I could be happier. I didn’t know how much I missed Jackson until I found out that he was alive and my heart ripped open all over again.Our moment has passed and I was no longer his. The love I still held for him, was suffocating me. I was torn between two lives and no matter what decision I made, somebody would get hurt. The man whom I’d never stopped loving, was back, and I could no longer give him the only thing he wanted: me.Indulge in Alex and Jackson’s forbidden love story as your favourite hero breaks down all walls and guides their hearts to a true happy-ever-after, in Only You.Note: Only you is a second chance standalone romance intended for mature audience only.

Where We Belong


K.L. Grayson - 2014
    . . she's a snarky little bitch.I’ve tried several times to regret the events that took place on June 5, 2008, but for the life of me, I can’t. I'd never regret the pain, the suffering, or the heartache because it ultimately led me to the place I am now. And I can’t regret the place I am now. What I still can't figure out is this: how is it possible that the single worst day of my life inadvertently became the very best day?Five years ago my life was irrevocably changed.Seventeen minutes was all it took—to lose my best friend…to lose the love of my life…Seventeen minutes was all it took for the seeds of hope—the seeds of my future—to be planted in the worst possible way.My name is Harley Thompson, and this is my story.