Book picks similar to
Friend Zone by Nicole Blanchard


romance
contemporary
new-adult
contemporary-romance

For Finlay


J. Nathan - 2017
    Each book follows a new couple.Finlay Thatcher is a lost soul, guilt-ridden after the death of her twin brother. When Alabama's football coach gives her the opportunity to work for him, she knows it's her chance to move on, even if it means living her brother's dream. Caden Brooks is Alabama's star quarterback. He's got it all. The attention of adoring fans. A girlfriend who'd do anything to hold on to him. And a future in the pros. He's getting along just fine until Finlay steps into his life, despising him at first sight and pushing his buttons like no other. Unfortunately for Finlay, and her attempt to keep Caden at arm's length, there's nothing Caden loves more than a challenge. The problem with this challenge is she comes with a secret that has the power to destroy everything.

Undeclared


Jen Frederick - 2013
    But when his deployment ended, so did the letters. Ever since that day, Grace has been coasting, academically and emotionally. The one thing she’s decided? No way is Noah Jackson — or any man — ever going to break her heart again.Noah has always known exactly what he wants out of life. Success. Stability. Control. That’s why he joined the Marines and that’s why he’s fighting his way — literally — through college. Now that he’s got the rest of his life on track, he has one last conquest: Grace Sullivan. But since he was the one who stopped writing, he knows that winning her back will be his biggest battle yet.

One Man


Lisa Renee Jones - 2019
    He's handsome, brutally so, and wealthy. Our first encounter is intense and sex is my escape. I go with it. I go with him and what a ride it is. And then, I say goodbye. Only you don't say goodbye to a man like Jax if he doesn't want you to. I've challenged him without meaning to. He wants me. I don't want to want him, and yet, I crave him. And he tears me down, my resistance, my walls. But those walls protect me. They seal my secrets inside. And I forget that being alone is safe. Before long, my secrets begin to be revealed, and I trust him so deeply that I think maybe he can handle them. Maybe I dare to believe that alone isn't better.Until I discover that Jax was never an accident.He has secrets. He knew my secret. He came for me.One Man is the first book in the dangerously sexy Naked Trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones.

Love So Hot


Marquita Valentine - 2015
     LOVE SO HOT, Book One of The Lawson Brothers Bank Teller and all around good girl, Sydney McKnight, is tired of being the girl all the guys want to have as a friend. Who better to help unleash her inner vixen than her best friend and secret crush, Brody Lawson? Only, Sydney has no idea how to ask him, without their friendship going up in flames, until that is, the town of Jessamine's annual Firemen's Auction gives her the perfect excuse to set her plan into motion. Fire Captain Brody Lawson has been in love with his best friend, Sydney, for years, but he would never risk their friendship by confessing his feelings to her. So, when Sydney beats out the competition to buy his time at the annual Firemen's Auction, Brody can hardly believe his luck until she asks him to teach her how to seduce a fellow fireman. Now, it’s up to Brody to show Sydney how perfect she already is and convince her that the only man for her is him, because if Sydney is going to seduce any man, it’s going to be him. And once he has her in his bed, he’s not letting her go.

The Hazards of Skinny Dipping


Alyssa Rose Ivy - 2013
    If you want a book like that, I'd be happy to recommend one, but I don't have that kind of story to tell. Instead my story is about rash decisions and finding out that your dream guy is bad in bed. It's the story of when I finally went skinny dipping, and how my life was never the same again. Oh, and it's also the story of my freshman year of college and realizing Mr. Right might have been there all along.

Falling for Autumn


Heather Topham Wood - 2014
    Everyone thought they knew what happened the spring night Autumn’s world fell apart. Vicious rumors about the incident circulated, and she had to be homeschooled the last year of high school to escape her tormentors. All she wants now is to get away from it all and start over at Cook University. She leaves everything but the memory behind—something she swore she’d never forget—and sets off to rebuild what was broken.Blake Preston is precisely the type of guy Autumn wants to avoid. He’s gorgeous, arrogant and the college’s beloved football star. As much as she believes he’s someone she should steer clear of, avoiding him proves to be impossible. He shows up everywhere around campus, offering her a no-strings attached friendship. Autumn can’t deny Blake stirs up emotions she thought fled years ago. But things he’s been hiding begin to emerge and collide with her past, leaving her heart ravaged in their wake.Standalone New Adult Romance-Ages 17+ Due to Strong Language and Sexual Situations

Throttled


Elizabeth Lee - 2015
    Becoming Motocross royalty was always the plan, and he was willing to make sacrifices along the way to reach his goal. Sacrifices he thought he could live with until he returned to the small town where he grew up and learned to ride, and, more importantly, where he fell in love.When fate sends Nora Bennett back into his life, he takes one look at her and realizes that he made a huge mistake breaking up with her seven years ago. Now, he'll do whatever it takes to win her back. As Reid sets out to earn her forgiveness and convince her that the guy she's dating is not the one for her, Nora finds herself torn between what her head is telling her and what her heart wants. It's a race he never expected to be in, for a girl he can't stand to lose again.

Love Surfaced


Michelle Lynn - 2015
    We stayed on our designated sides of the relationship circle. Ignoring swarming butterflies.Brushing off skipped heartbeats.Settling on lingering stares.Here’s the secret … a hand extended over that invisible line once, exponentially changing the equation. I was convinced we could make our relationship work until Tanner broke the trust he embedded in me from the age of seven. One deceit of mega proportions and the relationship we built for that short month vanished. I swore never to speak to him again and it’s worked. Until now—two years later, when my brother’s wedding places me face-to-face with the best man—Tanner McCain. Leaving one equation to be solved. Can love surface twice?

Slammed


Teagan Kade - 2015
    Problem is, I’ve been given the ‘privilege’ of improving his GPA… provided I can find a brain in all that muscle.I don’t do bad boys. I do order and control, and he’s chaos. He’s the antithesis of my perfect princess world in every way. Still, there’s something deeper under those Caribbean eyes and cut body, a darkness we both share. I’m going to get to the bottom of it if it kills me, and given the way my heart hammers out of my chest every time he’s around, it just might.Game on.Slammed is a complete, standalone novel with a happy ending and no cheating.

Only for You


Genna Rulon - 2013
    It also feels an awful lot like a kick to the stomach when you try to fight it!” All Everleigh Carsen wanted to do was complete her final semester at Hensley University and begin the life she carefully planned. When a wave of violent crime seizes campus, Everleigh is persuaded to attend a school sponsored self-defense seminar by her best friend, where she meets volunteer instructor, Hunter Charles. After Everleigh’s biting sarcasm induces Hunter to eject her from class, a tempestuous relationship is born. Everleigh is determined to forget the striking man, but fate—that fickle shrew—continuously intervenes. Unable to escape him, she declares Hunter an enemy combatant. The only complication…Hunter is resolutely pursuing vindication…by any means necessary. Verbal warfare ensues, and despite Everleigh’s ingenious efforts, in Hunter, she has finally found her equal.Only For You is a compelling tale of friendship, desire, and redemption—brimming with intelligent characters, witty dialogue, unexpected twists, profound sorrow, unfettered hope, and love’s unassailable perseverance.• This story is appropriate for readers 18+• Only For You is the first book in the For You series by Genna Rulon. Each book in the series can be read as a stand alone novel.

Because You're Mine


K. Langston - 2013
    She’s already working for one of the most prestigious law firms in Boston as a research assistant, and in a few short months, she will finally graduate from Harvard and collect her law degree. Everything she’s worked so hard to accomplish is well within her reach. But when Madison has to take an unexpected trip back home, she's blindsided by the one thing she never anticipated. A man who not only tests her patience but tempts her heart. Madison doesn’t have time for love and a love as consuming as his will only derail her perfectly laid plans. Desperate to escape his wicked past, Holden Brooks moved to Madison's hometown five years ago, hell-bent on overcoming the demons that nearly destroyed him back in Texas. He’s in a good place in his life. Love is the last thing on his mind until he tastes her honeysuckle skin and looks into those deep blue eyes. Desire ignites as their two paths collide and they soon find out, fate has a plan of its own.

So Much More


Taryn Plendl - 2014
    Blake Patterson has no trouble getting women, in fact as the owner of a popular club, women are practically throwing themselves at him.They couldn’t be further from each other’s type, but when a solid friendship is formed, little by little the lines become blurred.In this struggle between friendship and love, the desire between them becomes too much to resist.What happens when your friend suddenly becomes So Much More?

Legally Yours


Nicole French - 2017
    Okay, so maybe she's a little neurotic too. She just can't afford to be distracted these days, especially not by the immature boys that keep asking her out. At the end of her third year at Harvard Law, all Skylar wants is to figure out her next steps: ones that will hopefully include a job, an apartment, and enough money to help her father stop getting into trouble. She simply has no room for romance, especially the kind that might break your heart. But on a dark, snowy night, when she's stranded in the living room of the notorious CEO of Sterling Ventures and one of the best attorneys in Boston, all of those boundaries are about to be knocked down.Brandon Sterling never believed in fate. A man of his own making, he firmly credits his successes to hard work. How else could you explain his rise from the poorest of backgrounds in South Boston to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Boston? Living in the lap of luxury, it never mattered to him that increasing success meant increased isolation in his big house on Beacon Street. After all, when you have everything, everyone else always wants something. That he walks in to find a gorgeous redhead sitting on his windowsill. Suddenly, the idea of love at first sight seems like the most plausible thing in the world...if only the one person he wants to give his heart to would actually take it.Together, Skylar and Brandon have the kind of passion few hope to find, but things keep getting in their way. Between school, business, her father's gambling troubles and Brandon's history of personal struggle, will their complicated lives prevent them from making it work together? Or, as they both suspect somewhere deep down, have they finally met their match in each other's hearts?

Where I End and You Begin


Andra Brynn - 2013
    It may tangle, it may knot, it may stretch or fray, but it will never break. It is a future as indelible as the past.I hope that isn't true. I pity anyone destined to meet me.----For Bianca Ray, the past is always catching up, one way or another. Now in her third semester at college, it's doing it again. Too much drinking has led to plummeting grades and rising absences, putting her scholarships in peril. When she makes it clear that she needs help—all over the floor of her history class—she’s given one last chance to shape up: seek therapy and bring her grades up by the end of the semester, or she’s out.Enter Catholic seminarian Daniel McGuire. The last thing Bianca wants is an aspiring priest to counsel her on how to live her life, but the handsome graduate student is different from the holy rollers she fled from at home. Gentle and unobtrusive, he helps her pick up the pieces and find a new way to live: not running from the past, but facing it head on. But opening up her heart to release the pain means that something else can come in. As Bianca and Daniel grow closer, their relationship moves onto dangerous ground and the fragile courage Bianca has built up threatens to fail her. Can she exorcise the ghosts of her past, or will they catch hold and drag her down where not even Daniel can reach her?

Rescuing Broken


Gina Azzi - 2018
    But she never escaped her past. Jax: I enlisted so Evie could have the future she deserved. She was smart and sweet and confident; I knew she would change the world. Until I returned seven years later to discover she’s never left. And she’s not the same girl I kissed good-bye. Evie: Heartbroken over Jax, I went to my last high school party for closure. In one instant, my dreams evaporated and everything I thought I knew crumbled. Helpless to move forward, I watched the years pass. Now he’s back. But I’m too broken for second chances. I’m too broken for him.