Book picks similar to
Crown of Lies by Pepper Winters
romance
dark
favorites
contemporary
Wreck Me
J.L. Mac - 2013
People can be ruthless and evil. The world can be cold and uninviting. No one knows these things better than Josephine Geroux. By her own definition, she is a twenty-five year old “nobody with nothing,” and she is content to stay that way. Growing up an orphan has made her tough and indifferent to the people around her until she meets a strangely familiar man with a face that haunts her for reasons she can’t understand.Despite the pain that will inevitably ensue, she makes it her mission to discover what parts of her tragic puzzle she is missing. On her journey to discovering why the she feels an alarming connection to an absolute stranger, her greatest fear is reawakening the demons and darkness from the past that will surely overtake her if she lets her guard down. Little does Josephine know that the past should be the least of her worries. She is toying with a man who has already broken her heart once. She just doesn’t realize it.Although she makes it a point to avoid interactions with others, Josephine’s life becomes entangled with the enigmatic stranger. Before she realizes it, she has given herself over to the one person who is close enough to wreck her.Word Count: 60,230
Brutally Beautiful
Christine Zolendz - 2013
With blood still on her hands, Samantha Matthews is on the run, running from dark secrets and a man she prays to God will never find her. Running and hiding, just to stay alive. She had no choice but to run, to leave, to hide and forget about her life before. When Samantha believes she's gained enough distance from her past and her demons, she stops running, hoping to find her future in the heavily wooded area of the Adirondack Mountains, a place she never expected to encounter a man with secrets as dark and as sordid as hers. Kade Grayson is hiding, not from the demons after him, but from himself and from the entire outside world, wishing every day he could have just died. Arrogant and domineering, he’s tormented and terrorized by his past, seeing nothing good for his future. With the ghosts of his past still haunting him, he has exiled himself to a life of solitude, only living for his words and through his stories.Until her.An undeniable attraction, turns into hate and then ultimately obsession, an obsession that grows into a powerful story of love and redemption.Will the bond they have begun to build between them grow stronger than the tragedies that have scarred both of their lives? Or will they allow their demons to consume them?
One is a Promise
Pam Godwin - 2017
My dark rebel in leather. My powerhouse of passion, devastating smiles, and impulsiveness.When his job sends him overseas, he promises to return to me.A promise that’s destroyed in the most irrevocable way.Two years later, an arrogant suit invades my heartbroken loneliness.Clean-cut and stern, Trace is everything Cole wasn’t.At first, he’s a job that will rescue my dance company. But as he intrudes on my life, our hostile relationship evolves.He knows I’m still in love with Cole, but his dedication is my undoing.Then a catastrophic moment changes everything.Promises resurface.Lies entangle.And an impossible choice shatters my world.I love two men, and I can only have one.The TANGLED LIES series must be read in order.One is a PromiseTwo is a LieThree is a War
Sugar Daddy
Sawyer Bennett - 2016
Sela Halstead lost her innocence in a way that no sixteen-year-old should ever have to endure. She’s spent years trying to forget that night even while wondering about the identities of the monsters who brutalized her—until a telltale tattoo flashes across Sela’s TV screen. The incriminating ink belongs to Jonathon Townsend, the millionaire founder of The Sugar Bowl, a website that matches rich older men with impressionable young women. Obsessed with revenge, Sela infiltrates Townsend’s world, only to come face-to-face with a tantalizing complication: Beckett North, his charismatic business partner. The tech mastermind behind The Sugar Bowl, Beck always gets what he wants, in business and in bed. And yet, for a man who’s done every dirty thing imaginable, there’s something about the naïve, fresh-faced Sela that sparks his hottest fantasies. Because with her, it’s not just about sex. Beck opens up to her in ways he never has with other girls. So why does he get the feeling that she’s hiding something? In a world of pleasure and power, the shocking truth could turn them against each other—or bind them forever. Note: Sugar Daddy ends on a cliffhanger. Sela and Beck’s story continues in Sugar Rush and Sugar Free!
Manwhore
Katy Evans - 2015
Don’t be fooled by that last name though. There’s nothing holy about the man except the hell his parties raise. The hottest entrepreneur Chicago has ever known, he’s a man’s man with too much money to spend and too many women vying for his attention. Mysterious. Privileged. Legendary. His entire life he’s been surrounded by the press as they dig for tidbits to see if his fairytale life is for real or all mirrors and social media lies. Since he hit the scene, his secrets have been his and his alone to keep. And that’s where I come in. Assigned to investigate Saint and reveal his elusive personality, I’m determined to make him the story that will change my career. But I never imagined he would change my life. Bit by bit, I start to wonder if I'm the one discovering him...or if he's uncovering me. What happens when the man they call Saint, makes you want to sin?
Killing Sarai
J.A. Redmerski - 2013
Over time she forgot what it was like to live a normal life, but she never let go of her hope to escape the compound where she has been held for the past nine years.Victor is a cold-blooded assassin who, like Sarai, has known only death and violence since he was a young boy. When Victor arrives at the compound to collect details and payment for a hit, Sarai sees him as her only opportunity for escape. But things don’t go as planned and instead of finding transport back to Tucson, she finds herself free from one dangerous man and caught in the clutches of another.While on the run, Victor strays from his primal nature as he succumbs to his conscience and resolves to help Sarai. As they grow closer, he finds himself willing to risk everything to keep her alive; even his relationship with his devoted brother and liaison, Niklas, who now like everyone else wants Sarai dead.As Victor and Sarai slowly build a trust, the differences between them seem to lessen, and an unlikely attraction intensifies. But Victor’s brutal skills and experience may not be enough in the end to save her, as the power she unknowingly holds over him may ultimately be what gets her killed.This is their story…
Better When He's Bad
Jay Crownover - 2014
. . meet Shane Baxter. Sexy, dark, and dangerous, Bax isn’t just from the wrong side of the tracks, he is the wrong side of the tracks. A criminal, a thug, and a brawler, he’s the master of bad choices, until one such choice landed him in prison for five years. Now Bax is out and looking for answers, and he doesn’t care what he has to do or who he has to hurt to get them. But there’s a new player in the game, and she’s much too innocent, much too soft…and standing directly in his way. Dovie Pryce knows all about living a hard life and the tough choices that come with it. She’s always tried to be good, tried to help others, and tried not to let the darkness pull her down. But the streets are fighting back, things have gone from bad to worse, and the only person who can help her is the scariest, sexiest, most complicated ex-con The Point has ever produced. Bax terrifies her, but it doesn’t take Dovie long to realize that some boys are just better when they’re bad.
Ruined
Tracy Wolff - 2014
He’s the last man Chloe Girard should love . . . but the first she ever could. Ethan Frost is a visionary, a genius, every woman’s deepest, darkest fantasy—even mine. And, somehow, I am his. He stole into my life like a dream. Turned my reality upside down and made my every desire come true—especially those I never knew I had. He demanded everything I had to give and gave me everything of himself in return. But dreams don’t last forever, and ours is no exception. Because my nightmares are darker, and my wounds deeper, than I could ever reveal. And as much as Ethan wants to protect me, the secrets we share will only tear us apart. Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from other Loveswept titles.
Enslaved by the Ocean
Bella Jewel - 2013
She's done something bad, and the only way to escape it, is to flee her home, and her country. She sets out on a luxury Yacht, to take her to another country with her best friend Eric. But she runs into a problem. The Yacht catches fire. She ends up stranded in the ocean, terrified, and scared of the uncertain. Until they show up. The pirates. Terrified, Indigo and Eric have to face the reality that this might be the end for them. These are pirates, they are the criminals of the ocean. What chance have they got of surviving this nightmare?Then she lays eyes on Hendrix. He's the Captain, he's gorgeous, rugged, and mean. He's planning on keeping her to repay his debt to another man, by selling her. Now Indigo has a crazy ex after her, as well as a pirate she can't seem to get out of her head.Come on this heart wrenching, dark, angsty and dangerous adventure as two people so opposite, find something so beautiful.
This is War: Travis & Viola, #1
Kennedy Fox - 2016
His sculpted abs and gorgeous eyes are wasted on such an arrogant man, which makes me hate him even more.Even though I’ve had a crush on him since I was ten, the feelings weren’t mutual and he’s made that very clear. He’s always loved getting under my skin and one night against my better judgment, I let him in my bed. I’ve succumbed to his manw**re ways, but that doesn’t change a thing.Because the King is about to get played at his own game—and lose.Checkmate, King.This is book 1 in the Travis & Viola duet and must be read first. Suggested for mature readers only.
The Professional
Kresley Cole - 2014
Ordered to protect her, Aleksei will do anything to possess her as well—on his own wicked terms.Rules are made to be broken…Grad student Natalie Porter had barely recovered from her first sight of the dark and breathtaking Sevastyan before the professional enforcer whisks her away to Russia, thrusting her into a world of extreme wealth and wanton pleasures. Every day under his protection leads her deeper under his masterful spell.Are you ready to play?Yet all is not as it seems. To remove Natalie from an enemy’s reach, Sevastyan spirits her into hiding. From an opulent palace in Russia to the decadent playgrounds of the mega-wealthy in Paris, the two lovers will discover that even their darkest—and most forbidden—fantasies can come true...
Surrender Your Love
J.C. Reed - 2013
Dangerous. Better left untouched. And better forgotten. But lightning always strikes twice.Brooke Stewart, a realtor in New York, doesn’t do relationships. When she’s sent to a remote estate to finalize a real estate deal, she discovers her new boss is no other than the guy she left naked in bed.Sexy, dangerously handsome, and arrogant Jett Mayfield attracts trouble, and women, like a lightning rod. But the night he meets Brooke he gets more than he bargained for. The green-eyed millionaire playboy isn’t used to taking no for an answer, and he isn’t about to start now.When he proposes two months of no strings sex, Brooke is intrigued and accepts his proposal. Little does she know Jett’s determined to claim the one woman he can’t have, pulling her deeper into his dangerous world.A man who doesn't take 'no' for an answer.A woman afraid to surrender to love.Two lives that are about to cross...and secrets laid bare.
Monster in His Eyes
J.M. Darhower - 2014
He has a way of commanding attention, of taking control, of knowing what I'm thinking before I even do.It's alarming and alluring. It's dark and deadly. It's everything I've ever wanted but the last thing I truly need. Obsession.It doesn't take him long to draw me into his web, charming me into his bed and trapping me in his life, a life I know nothing about until it's too late. He has secrets, secrets I can't fathom, secrets that make it so I can't walk away, no matter how much I beg him to let me go. I see it sometimes in his eyes, a darkness that's both terrifying and thrilling. He's a monster, wrapped up in a pretty package, and what I find when I unmask him changes everything.I want to hate him.Sometimes, I do.But it doesn't stop me from loving him, too.
Reign of a King
Rina Kent - 2020
Jonathan King is every bit his last name.Powerful.Untouchable.Corrupted.He’s also my dead sister’s husband and way older than me.When I first met him as a clueless child, I thought he was a god.Now, I have to confront that god to protect my business from his ruthless grip.Little did I know that declaring a war on the king will cost me everything.When Jonathan covets something, he doesn’t only win, he conquers.Now, he has his sights on me.He wants to consume not only my body, but also my heart and my soul.I fight, but there’s no escaping the king in his kingdom...Reign of a King is the first part of a duet and is not standalone.