Book picks similar to
The Best Thing by Mariana Zapata


romance
contemporary
slow-burn
contemporary-romance

Release


Aly Martinez - 2020
     Growing up, Ramsey Stewart branded my soul in ways time could never heal. At twelve, he asked me to be his girlfriend. At thirteen, he gave me my first kiss. By sixteen, we’d fallen in love, planned a future together, and had our eyes set on the horizon. Love never fails, right? But for Ramsey, it did. Love failed him. I failed him. The entire world failed him. At seventeen, Ramsey was convicted of killing the boy who assaulted me. Move on, he wrote in his first and only letter from prison. Start a new life, he urged. I don’t love you anymore, he lied. There was no such thing as giving up on Ramsey. Love may have been our curse, but he was mine—then, now, and forever. So here I am, twelve long years later, waiting for a man I don't even know to emerge from between the chain link gates.

Running Barefoot


Amy Harmon - 2012
    Josie teaches Samuel about words, music and friendship, and along the way finds a kindred spirit. Upon graduation, Samuel abandons the sleepy, small town in search of a future and a life, leaving his young friend behind. Many years go by and Samuel returns, finding Josie in need of the very things she offered him years before. Their roles reversed, Samuel teaches Josie about life, love, and letting go. Deeply romantic and poignant, Running Barefoot is the story of a small town girl and a Native American boy, the ties that bind them to their homes and families, and the love that gives them wings.

Shameless


Lex Martin - 2016
    Brady… What the hell do I know about raising a baby? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Yet here I am, the sole guardian of my niece. I’d be lost if it weren’t for Katherine, the beautiful girl who seems to have all the answers. Katherine, who’s slowly finding her way into my cynical heart. I keep reminding myself that I can’t fall for someone when we don’t have a future. But telling myself this lie and believing it are two different things. Katherine… When Brady shows up on a Harley, looking like an avenging angel—six feet, three inches of chiseled muscle, eyes the color of wild sage, and sun-kissed skin emblazoned with tattoos—I’m not sure if I should fall at his feet or run like hell. Because if I tell him what happened the night his family died, he might hate me. What I don’t count on are the nights we spend together trying to forget the heartache that brought us here. I promise him it won’t mean anything, that I won’t fall in love. I shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep.SHAMELESS is a standalone companion novel in the Texas Nights series. BREATHLESS, Joey and Logan's book, releases Feb. 18, 2020!

The Prenup


Lauren Layne - 2019
     I haven't seen him since. Charlotte Spencer grew up on the blue-blooded Upper East Side of Manhattan but she never wanted the sit-still-look-pretty future her parents dictated for her. Enter Colin Walsh, her brother's quiet, brooding, man-bun-sporting best friend, and with him a chance to escape. He's far from Charlotte's dream guy as but they need each other for one thing: marriage. One courthouse wedding later, Charlotte's inheritance is hers to start a business in San Francisco and Irish-born Colin has a Green Card. Ten years later, Colin drops a bombshell: the terms of their prenup state that before either can file for divorce, they have to live under the same roof for three months. Suddenly this match made in practicality is about to take on whole new meaning...

Jock Row


Sara Ney - 2018
    The planner. The one holding your hair back while you're worshiping the porcelain gods. Week-after-week, she visits Jock Row with her friends — the university's hottest party scene and breeding ground for student athletes. And if keeping her friends out of trouble, and guys out of their pants, was a sport, she'd be the star athlete.Being a well known jock-blocker gets her noticed for all the wrong reasons; just like that, she's banned from Jock Row. NO GUY WANTS A GIRL AROUND WHO KEEPS THEIR JOCK FRIENDS FROM GETTING LAID."Rowdy" Wade is the hot shot short-stop for the university's baseball team — and the unlucky bastard who drew the short straw: keep little Miss Goody Two-Shoes out of the Baseball House. But week-after-week Scarlett returns, determined to get inside.

The Secret Ex-Boyfriend


Krista Ritchie - 2017
     And then we broke Aerial Ethereal’s biggest rule together. We’ve been paying the price ever since. Corporate won’t let me see her. Or speak to her. And we painfully signed on the dotted line in agreement. Erasing our secret relationship from existence. Now I’m twenty, and I hate Corporate. But I can’t leave. My family makes up one-third of Aerial Ethereal’s cast list. I love them.(And I still love her.) BAYLEE WRIGHT Luka is back. My undeniably hot secret ex-boyfriend was just shifted to the Vegas show Infini. We’re working together again on a show that means too much to me. No distractions. Even if the sexy, rebellious boy with hidden troubles completely stole my teenage heart.Aerial Ethereal demands he remains my tragic secret.This book was previously published with the title Infini.

Burn for You


J.T. Geissinger - 2017
    But for a sassy chef and an arrogant billionaire, the sparks are real…Jackson “The Beast” Boudreaux is rich, gorgeous, and unbelievably rude to the staff at Chef Bianca Hardwick’s New Orleans restaurant. Bianca would sooner douse herself in hot sauce than cook for Jackson again, but when he asks her to cater his fund-raiser, Bianca can’t refuse, knowing the cash will help pay her mother’s medical bills. Then Jackson makes another outrageous request: Marry me. The unconventional offer includes an enormous sum—money Bianca desperately needs, even if it does come with a contract — and a stunning ring.The heir to a family bourbon dynasty, Jackson knows the rumors swirling around him. The truth is even darker. Still, he needs a wife to secure his inheritance, and free-spirited, sassy Bianca would play the part beautifully. Soon, though, their simple business deal evolves into an emotional intimacy he’s built walls to avoid.As the passion heats up between them, Bianca and Jackson struggle to define which feelings are real and which are for show. Is falling for your fake fiancé the best happy ending… or a recipe for disaster?

Lies & Lullabies


Sarina Bowen - 2020
    We shared a lot during our short time together. But he skipped a few crucial details.I didn’t know he was a rock star.I didn’t know his real name.Neither of us knew I’d get pregnant.And I sure never expected to see him again.Five years later, his tour bus pulls up in Nest Lake, Maine. My little world is about to be shattered by loud music and the pounding of my own foolish heart.

Repeat


Kylie Scott - 2019
    Now she has to figure out who she was and why she made the choices she did - which includes leaving the supposed love of her life, tattoo artist Ed Larsen, only a month before. Ed can hardly believe it when his ex shows up at his tattoo parlor with no memory of their past, asking about the breakup that nearly destroyed him. The last thing he needs is more heartache, but he can't seem to let her go again. Should they walk away for good, or does their love deserve a repeat performance?Listening Length: 6 hours and 47 minutes

Fake Fiancée


Ilsa Madden-Mills - 2017
    They say nothing compares to your first kiss,But our first kiss was orchestrated for an audience.Our second kiss . . . that one was REAL.He cradled my face like he was terrified he'd f*ck it up.He stared into my eyes until the air buzzed.Soft and slow, full of sighs and little laughs,He inhaled me like I was the finest Belgian chocolate,And he'd never get another piece.A nip of his teeth, his hand at my waist . . .And I was lost.I forgot he was paying me to be his fake fiancée.I forgot we weren't REAL.Our kiss was pure magic, and before you laugh and say those kinds of kisses don't exist,Then you've never touched lips with Max Kent, the hottest quarterback in college history.Three months. Two hearts. One fake engagement.

The Pact


Karina Halle - 2014
    He’s also one of Stephanie Robson’s best friends and has fit into that box for as long as she’s known him.But some relationships can’t be boxed, can’t be classified, can’t be tamed.Back in their mid-twenties and tired of the competitive hit-or-miss dating scene of San Francisco, Steph and Linden made a pact to marry each other if neither one of them are in a serious relationship by the time they hit thirty.It sounds like fun and games but as the years to thirty tick past and lovers come and go out of their lives, the pact becomes larger than life.Sex is inevitable. Friendships are tested. Hearts are on the line.The pact is about to change everything.

Getting Schooled


Emma Chase - 2018
    He has good friends, a great house on the lake, and the best damn sidekick a man could ask for: Snoopy, the albino beagle.Then...Callie Carpenter comes home.And knocks him right on his tight end zone.Back to school...Callie has a pretty sweet life herself...on the other side of the country. But circumstances—that she'd prefer to never speak of again—have brought her back home, helping out her parents and substitute teaching at her old high school.Now she's facing bickering, raging hormones, constant gossip, awkward weirdness, and drama galore...and that's just the teachers.Just like old times...When Garrett offers to show his former high school sweetheart the secrets of his winning teacher ways, Callie jumps at the chance—and then has to stop herself from jumping him.Good friends are all they can ever be.Or...these teachers just might end up getting schooled—hard—by love.

Kaleidoscope Hearts


Claire Contreras - 2015
    And all those feelings I’d turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me. He broke my heart last time. This time he'll obliterate it.This is a standalone.

Binding Arbitration


Elizabeth Marx - 2011
    The undefeated defense attorney is prepared to take her fight all the way to the majors.Circumstances force Libby to plead her case at the cleats of celebrity baseball player Banford Aidan Palowski, the man who discarded her at their college graduation. Libby has worked her backside bare for everything she’s attained, while Aidan has been indulged since he slid through the birth canal and landed in a pile of Gold Coast money. But helping Libby and living up to his biological duty could jeopardize the only thing the jock worships: his baseball career.If baseball imitates life, Aidan admits his appears to be silver-plated peanuts, until an unexpected confrontation with the most spectacular prize that’s ever poured from a caramel corn box blindsides him. When he learns about his son’s desperate need, it pricks open the wound he’s carried since he abandoned Libby and the child.All Libby wants is a little anonymous DNA, but Aidan has a magical umpire in his head who knows Libby’s a fateball right to the heart. When a six-year-old sage and a hippy priestess step onto the field, there’s more to settle between Libby and Aidan than heartache, redemption, and forgiveness.

Sacrifice


Adriana Locke - 2015
    I was left with a shattered heart, a heap of bills, and our daughter, EVERLEIGH. I don’t want to rely on anyone, least of all CREW GENTRY. He’s my first love and the man who almost destroyed me, the man who has let me down every time I’ve needed him. But when tragedy strikes a second time, Crew just might be my only hope. My life changed forever the night my brother died.I was left with a guilty conscience, a pile of mistakes, and little else. I take care of JULIA GENTRY, my brother’s widow and the love of my life, and their daughter. I know she doesn’t want my help, but she gets it anyway. I owe her that.When another disaster hits, I’m given the opportunity to make things right. I’m taking it. I'm willing to sacrifice it all.