Book picks similar to
The Captive by Julie Coulter Bellon


romance
suspense
mystery-suspense
romantic-suspense

If We Dare to Dream


Collette Scott - 2011
    Andrew Sheehan, former elite soldier, returns home from war and is suddenly accused of murder. Only Jamie Evans can prove his innocence.What would you do?A single meeting, the memory of one night, holds the key to a murder. If Jamie is correct, she gives a hero back his life. If she is wrong, she risks freeing a murderer from prison. Trusting her instincts, Jamie puts her life on hold and strives to free Andrew despite her family's misgivings. Determined to do what is right, she vows to help him get his life back on track.Andrew, feeling betrayed by the country he nearly died protecting, fights the demons he carries in an effort to make things work with Jamie and repair the fractured relationship with his brother Adam, who bears his own battle scars.Dare he dream?With Jamie and her family's help, Andrew begins to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Realizing that there is more to life than bitterness and resentment, he starts over again determined to make the best of his experiences. But the killer is still out there, and Andrew soon finds that he is haunting him still.

Wrong Number


Rachelle J. Christensen - 2010
    At first she assumes it's some kind of prank. But the call isn't a practical joke, and Aubree soon finds herself swept up in a world of danger, intrigue, and murder. With help from the FBI, Aubree races to protect herself and what's left of her family, but the one thing she forgets to protect is her own heart.

Mark of the Loon


Molly Greene - 2012
    She struggles with the inability to put down roots years after the sudden death of her beloved parents. Madison and her three wise, hilarious friends all wonder if she uses her busy, work-centric lifestyle as an excuse to avoid connection with anyone but them.When Madison checks out a probate sale outside Healdsburg, California, she falls in love with the European-style house on a private tract of land overlooking Lake Sonoma. In fact, she likes the place so much she climbs in the window for a private tour. With help from lawyer and friend Genevieve Delacourt, Madison soon learns that the estate’s corrupt attorney has manipulated the sale and is attempting to steer the purchase to an anonymous client in a deceitful plan for personal gain.Good fortune enables her to purchase the Blackburne’s property, but far more than a new home and lush gardens await discovery during this renovation. As Madison works on the remodel, she’s drawn into an old love story with dangerous consequences. In the process, she discovers herself as she unearths buried secrets. The series of events both endanger Madison and lead her to love – and a permanent home. Mark of the Loon is the skillful combination of history, mystery, and romance in a novel that explores deep friendship, choices, and how individuals cope with loss.

Squall


Sean Costello - 2014
    On a clear winter morning he sets out in his Cessna 180 to do some repairs on a remote hunt camp, leaving his five year old son and very pregnant wife snug in their beds.On the return trip, a squall forces him into an emergency landing and he winds up—quite literally—in the lap of petty criminal Dale Knight. Dale, now a fugitive from the law—and worse, from a merciless drug lord who just happens to be his brother—draws Tom into a web of mayhem and treachery that puts not only his life at risk, but the lives of his wife, son…and unborn child.SQUALL is a fast-paced, darkly-comic tale of murder and gang-style retribution that grabs the reader on page one and simply does not let go.

Intimate Enemies


Joan Swan - 2012
    Searching for closure, Cassie returns to her childhood home on the Pacific Coast of Baja, Mexico, where she launches her own investigation into the accident. She never expected to find an adversary in the man who had once touched her heart with kindness in her darkest moment.Rio’s been fantasizing about reconnecting with Cassie for months. But not here and sure as hell not now. As an undercover agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he’s working the biggest sting operation in all of northern Mexico, and he definitely doesn’t have time for the wild attraction he feels for Cassie.Not only is his cover on the line, so is his heart. Because as the end of a yearlong operation draws closer, Rio knows if he tells Cassie the truth about who and what he is, it won’t only jeopardize his mission, it may result in him losing her forever. And if he doesn’t, his lies and deception could get them both killed.Note: Also appears in the 2013 anthology Dark Nights Dangerous Men

Either Side of Midnight


Tori de Clare - 2013
    I rate this book as a ten-star and expect to see it as number one on the best selling list for many, many weeks.” Reviewed by Trudi LoPreto for Readers'Favorite.WHAT IF THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TURNED INTO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE?When nineteen-year-old Naomi Stone is snatched from her husband at knifepoint on the night of their wedding and taken to a deserted cemetery, she knows her life is finished. Drugged and disorientated, she loses consciousness as she lies in an open grave with a gun to her head. But the following day, she mysteriously awakes to find herself unharmed and secured to a bed. She's in a beautiful bedroom in a secluded cottage in open countryside. Only one person knows she’s there – the man in the balaclava who’s holding her, feeding her, revealing nothing. Naomi senses the unfolding of a plan. She should be on honeymoon in the Caribbean. Instead, she’s trapped with an emotionless psycho with no hope of escape . . . And his voice is chillingly familiar.Who is he? What does he want? What's happened to her husband? Where is she? Will anyone find her before it's too late?

The View from Rainshadow Bay


Colleen Coble - 2018
    Every day is a struggle to make ends meet and she lives in constant fear of losing even more than she already has.When her business partner is murdered, his final words convince Shauna that she’s in danger too. But where can she turn? Zach Bannister was her husband’s best friend and is the person she blames for his death. She’s barely spoken to him since. But right now he seems her only hope for protecting her son.Zach is only too happy to assuage his guilt over Jack’s death by helping Shauna any way he can. But there are secrets involved dating back to Shauna’s childhood that more than one person would prefer to stay hidden.In The View from Rainshadow Bay, suspense, danger, and a longing to love again ignite amid the gorgeous lavender fields of Washington State.

Kidnapped


Suzanne Ferrell - 2012
    He’s been shot and if he can’t get help fast, two lives will be lost—his and that of the young witness whom he’s sworn to protect. Desperate, on the run from both the police and the Russian Mafia, he kidnaps a nurse from a hospital parking lot.ER nurse Samantha Edgars has been living in an emotional vacuum since the death of her daughter. Mentally and physically exhausted following a difficult shift, she’s suddenly jolted from her stupor when she’s bound and gagged, then tossed into the back of her car. Forced to tend a bleeding FBI agent and his injured witness, she’s terrified. But Samantha quickly learns the rogue agent and orphaned boy need more than just her professional skills. Danger is bearing down on them, and she must learn to trust Jake—and her heart— if they’re all going to survive.

Long Time Coming


Edie Claire - 2003
    But back at home, the past is ready and waiting to haunt her...Eighteen years have passed since Joy's childhood best friend, Jenny, met her death in a tragic car accident just a few days after their senior prom. A broken Joy left their small Kentucky hometown shortly after - determined never to come back. But when her father's illness forces her to return, she realizes that neither time nor distance have truly healed her troubled soul.Plagued with nightmares of the accident and crippled by a vague fear whose source she can't identify, Joy realizes that in order to move on she must face the truth behind several disturbing gaps in her memory of that fateful spring. But the only person who can help her is a man she despises - Jenny's erstwhile boyfriend Jeff, now a respected doctor, whose carelessness as a teenager was the cause of Jenny's horrendous death - and Joy's own emotional destruction. Can she ever forgive? She may have no choice but to try. Because both the danger she sensed - and the childhood friendship she treasured - now suddenly seem very much alive...

Horses and Heroin


Bev Pettersen - 2012
    Her only ally is a recuperating PI who unfortunately is the owner's best friend. Soon she is caught between a blossoming romance and a far-reaching conspiracy...where misplaced trust can be deadly.

Hanover House


Brenda Novak - 2015
    Why do psychopaths act as they do? How do they come to be? Why don’t they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause? And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them?After having been kidnapped, tortured and left for dead when she was just a teenager—by her high school boyfriend—she’s determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her. So she’s established a revolutionary new medical health center in the remote town of Hilltop, Alaska, where she studies the worst of the worst.But not everyone in Hilltop is excited to have Hanover House and its many serial killers in the area. Alaskan State Trooper, Sergeant Amarok, is one of them. And yet he can’t help feeling bad about what Evelyn has been through. He’s even attracted to her. Which is partly why he worries.He knows what could happen if only one little thing goes wrong...

The Grave Man


David Archer - 2015
     Sam Prichard was a cop, and a good one, until the bullets took out the joint of his right hip. Now he's trying to learn to live without being a cop, and getting to know his neighbors, learning to walk again and even ride a motorcycle. Life is bearable, barely, but then he gets asked to find a missing child, and the lure of getting back into some kind of police work is too much for him to resist. When he teams up with computer whiz Indiana Perkins, he suddenly becomes one of the best investigators he's ever even known. Now, he's found the missing child, but it's thrown him right into the middle of something that may be a drug war--or could be a chance to stop the next 911! There's no way out for Sam, so he's in for the ride of his life, but when the girl he's becoming fond of is suddenly drawn into the line of fire with her own little daughter, Sam is ready to forget all the rules and do whatever is necessary to win the day.

Hell on Wheels


Julie Ann Walker - 2012
    But he’s done something so heinous he’s convinced she’ll never forgive him if she discovers the truth, so he keeps his feelings and his secrets to himself. Then she blows into town with a mother lode of bad guys on her tail and Nate can’t deny she’s in serious trouble. Unfortunately, he’s the only one who can help her.She’s the good girl he’s kept at arm’s length...Ali knows Nate as the most solemn, aloof man on the planet. Sadly, he’s also the sexiest. For years she’s avoided him, unable to stomach his dark scowls and brooding silences… especially when she secretly yearns for his touch. Now she must rely on him to save her from the malevolent shadows ghosting her every move. When the bullets explode, so does their passion. But can love really conquer all? Or are some things just too terrible to forgive?

Final Target


Zara Keane - 2020
    Through the crosshairs of his sniper rifle, he realizes that his target is a former girlfriend—a woman who supposedly died five years previously.Moira Collins is an intelligence agent whose cover has been shot to smithereens. When she finds herself on the wrong side of an assassin’s rifle, she’s appalled to recognize the only mark she ever let herself fall in love with.

Undetected


Dee Henderson - 2014
    Mark Bishop is a man who accepts that responsibility, and carries it well. And at a time when tensions are escalating in the Pacific Rim, the navy is glad to have him.Mark wants someone to come home to after sea patrols. The woman he has in mind is young, pretty, and very smart. She's a civilian, but she understands life in the navy. And he has a strong sense that life with her would never be boring. But she may be too deep in her work to see the potential in a relationship with him.Gina Gray would love to be married. She has always envisioned her life that way. But a breakup she didn't see coming has her focusing all her attention on what she does best--ocean science research. She's on the cusp of a breakthrough, and she needs Mark Bishop's perspective and help. Because what she's told the navy she's figured out is only the beginning. If she's right, submarine warfare is about to enter a new and dangerous chapter...