Book picks similar to
Ruby by P.D. Workman


young-adult
fiction
realistic-fiction
abuse

Forbidden


Tabitha Suzuma - 2010
    He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

High School Hero (Forest Ridge High #1)


Sherri Renee - 2018
    Now, with prom only weeks away, her boyfriend starts becoming someone she doesn't even recognize. Sure he's got a lot on his mind with college decision and football playoffs coming up, but that doesn't excuse him for acting like a major jerk. Matt Brady, the annoying but gorgeous bad boy who moves in next door, lets Kristen in on a little secret, her boyfriend's using steroids to help win the state championship. When George takes his new temper out on Kristen, Matt's there to help pick up the pieces, and Kristen soon realizes bad-boy Matt isn't so bad at all. Kristen's over George's mean new attitude. Prom or no prom she's breaking up. Only he won't let her. Steroids aren't the only illegal activity George is involved in, and now he's got to pay the price, only he's dragging her along with him. Can Matt help her escape the dangerous game George is involved in? With a target on her back, prom is suddenly the least of her worries. Read Michelle's story in High School Heartbreak!

The Woman


David Bishop - 2011
    This is a story of just one woman. As the story unfolds Linda gradually learns that some people do deserve to die, but that she is not one of those people. Linda Darby is a seven-year divorcee, living quietly in a small let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon, who day trades for a living. Her only close friend is a widowed elderly woman who manages a small consulting company, which, as is later discovered, never has visitors, sends and receives its business correspondence only by courier, and is not listed in any phone directory. No one in town knows what kind of consulting the company does, but the rumor is that whatever they do is done for the government. Linda doesn’t date local men. When her celibacy grows intolerable, she visits nearby towns to frequent the watering holes of successful men. Her motto: No relationships. No second dates. No use of her real name during one-night stands. Then one evening, Linda goes for a walk and nothing for her is ever the same. She is dragged into an alley by two men, but saved by a third, a stranger who disappears as suddenly as he appeared. The next day she finds out the two men in the alley had been killed, the town’s first murders ever. The following day she learns that hours before she had been dragged into the alley, her close friend was tortured and killed.

Fearscape


Nenia Campbell - 2012
    She trusted him because she wanted excitement. There's a saying that curiosity can kill … but Valerian Kimble is beginning to learn that satisfaction might just be worse.Fourteen-year-old Valerian lives in an age where antiheroes and bad boys are portrayed as the romantic ideal, and good guys are passe and boring. So when Gavin Mecozzi, the school's brilliant but twisted loner, begins to show an interest in her after a chance meeting in a pet store, Val is intrigued. He's charming and poetic and makes her feel things that she thought were only possible in books--Fear.Because somebody is stalking Val. Somebody who wants to hurt her. Own her. Possess her. Maybe even kill her.As her meetings with Gavin unravel into a more complex and frightening relationship, Val can't help but wonder if the new boy in her life is her depraved and obsessive stalker.And whether he's capable of murder.Time is running out.

If You Find Me


Emily Murdoch - 2013
    The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

Forever Innocent


Deanna Roy - 2013
    On what should have been one of the happiest nights of her life, she and her boyfriend Gavin watched a nurse disconnect the ventilator from their seven-day-old baby. During the funeral two days later, Gavin walked out and never returned.Since then, her life has been a spiral of disasters. The only thing that has helped is her ability to black out whenever the pain gets too hard to bear, a habit that has become an addiction.When Gavin shows up in her astronomy class four years later, he is hell-bent on getting her back, insisting she forgive him. Corabelle knows she can’t resist the touch that fills the empty ache that has haunted her since he left. But if he learns what she has done, if he follows the trail back through her past, her secrets will destroy their love completely. And once again, she’ll lose the only person who always believed she was innocent.New Adult Contemporary Romance

The Piper's Son


Melina Marchetta - 2010
    After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can't forget. Shooting for oblivion, he's hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom's in no shape to mend what's broken. But what if no one else is either? An unflinching look at family, forgiveness, and the fierce inner workings of love and friendship, The Piper's Son redefines what it means to go home again.The award-winning author of Finnikin of the Rock and Jellicoe Road pens a raw, compelling novel about a family's hard-won healing on the other side of trauma.

He Loves Me Not


Christine Kersey - 2011
    After all, she's barely met the two men it could be referring to. But as she begins to fall for the man with the striking blue eyes, the disturbing messages increase.Refusing to believe warnings from an anonymous sender, and trusting her own heart, Lily presses forward with her relationship, eventually coming to understand the meaning behind the messages as she fears for her life.He Loves Me Not does not contain any profanity or sexual content.

Find You in the Dark


A. Meredith Walters - 2012
    Normal friends, normal parents, normal grades.. normal life. Until him. Clayton Reed was running from his past and an army of personal demons that threatened to take him down. He never thought he had a chance at happiness. Until her. Maggie thought their love could overcome anything. Clay thought she was all he needed to fix his messy life. That together, they could face the world. But the darkness is always waiting. Sometimes the greatest obstacle to true love is within yourself.

Golden Boy


Abigail Tarttelin - 2013
    They are even better at keeping them from each other. Max Walker is a golden boy, with a secret that the world may not be ready for. This novel is a riveting tale of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

Wired In


Toby Neal - 2016
    identifies an anomaly that leads her into a cat-and-mouse game online with a deadly enemy whose motives are unclear. The chase lures her through dark corridors of cyberspace into a confrontation with the violence from her past that sent her fleeing to the United States. She’ll need every skill she’s learned to defeat her worst nightmare — and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Dodgers


Bill Beverly - 2016
    Salinger. It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.   Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

Watched Too Long


Ann Voss Peterson - 2016
    Former Chicago Homicide lieutenant Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels, needs Val to babysit for a few days. Val isn’t comfortable around toddlers, but she accepts. Then one baby becomes two, and some criminals from Jack’s past come calling with child abduction and arson on their agenda. Val might not know babies. But she knows a whole lot about putting up a fight... WATCHED TOO LONG by Ann Voss Peterson and JA Konrath Some would kill for a good babysitter…

Hushed


Kelley York - 2011
    He’s loved her. He’s killed for her.Eighteen-year-old Archer couldn’t protect his best friend, Vivian, from what happened when they were kids, so he’s never stopped trying to protect her from everything else. It doesn’t matter that Vivian only uses him when hopping from one toxic relationship to another—Archer is always there, waiting to be noticed.Then along comes Evan, the only person who’s ever cared about Archer without a single string attached. The harder he falls for Evan, the more Archer sees Vivian for the manipulative hot-mess she really is.But Viv has her hooks in deep, and when she finds out about the murders Archer’s committed and his relationship with Evan, she threatens to turn him in if she doesn’t get what she wants… And what she wants is Evan’s death, and for Archer to forfeit his last chance at redemption.

The Other Sister


Leanne Davis - 2013
    Everyone knows Lindsey is the good one, and Jessie is the bad one. Jessie Bains is the other sister, the bad sister, which she has proven more often than not, until the day she gets kidnapped and brutally raped. Will Hendricks, one of her father's soldiers, rescues her and brings her home, but fears she may be nearly destroyed by what is done to her. The most important thing, however, is that no one can know, per the general's orders. Jessie's life was always far from normal as the daughter of one of the most revered generals in the world. No one sees what the general does to Jessie, except Will. When Will discovers the danger Jessie is living in at her father's hand, he once again rescues her. Will has survived the horrors of war, but is now engaged in a battle that has become far more personal and far more deadly. Will alone realizes what the general has done and will do to destroy his "other" daughter. **Due to mature subject matter and language this book is recommended for readers aged 17+.**