Book picks similar to
The Damsel in This Dress by Marianne Stillings


contemporary-romance
romance
contemporary
chick-lit

Younger


Pamela Redmond Satran - 2005
     Alice has always looked young for her age, even with her graying hair and her dowdy New Jersey housewife style. Make that ex-housewife: Now that her husband’s gone and her daughter is grown, Alice is in desperate need of a whole new life. So she lets her best friend Maggie, a hip New York City artist, transform her on New Year’s Eve. Soon, thanks to the wonders of hair dye and tight jeans, Alice looks really young, as one night in a Manhattan bar confirms. At midnight, she kisses a boy who was in diapers when she was in high school. She’s having too much fun to care. The white lie Alice tells Josh gets her thinking that if no one asks her age, she doesn’t have to tell. So she applies for a job she had briefly before becoming a full-time mom—and gets it. Meanwhile, Josh is falling head over heels for Alice, who’s just way cooler than girls his age. He figures she’s about twenty-nine—and for the first time since she was twenty-nine, or possibly ever, Alice feels that life is ripe with possibility. Unfortunately one possibility is that she’s gonna get caught. Challenging the adage that the truth will set you free, Younger is a hilarious and insightful story that proves that you’re only as young as you feel.

Elly in Bloom


Colleen Oakes - 2012
    Louis. It’s not bad for a woman who drove away from her entire life just two years ago when she found her husband entwined with a red-headed artist. Sure, Elly has an embarrassingly beautiful best friend, a terribly behaved sheepdog and a sarcastic assistant who she simply calls “Snarky Teenager”, but overall her days are pleasantly uneventful. As a bonus, her new next door neighbor just happens to be an unnervingly handsome musician who has an eye for curvy Elly. Just when she feels that she is finally moving on from her past, she discovers that an extravagant wedding contract, one that could change her financial future, is more than she bargained for. With the help of her friends, staff and the occasional well-made sandwich, Elly bravely agrees to take on the event that threatens to merge her painful history with her bright new life, and finds herself blooming in a direction she never imagined. Elly’s voice, both charming and hilarious, will appeal to those readers who have been looking for a new voice in chick-lit, and will give women of all sizes the realistic heroine they’ve been waiting for.

Calamity Jayne


Kathleen Bacus - 2006
    Crowned "Calamity Jayne" by Iowa Department of Natural Resources officer Rick Townsend, Tressa's out to gain a little hometown respect --or die trying. Unfortunately for Tressa, that may be the case. She's just been handed the perfect opportunity to get "Ranger Rick," the doubting Don Juan of the DNR, and a skeptical citizenry to finally take her seriously. How? By solving a murder no one else believes happened...No one, that is, except the killer.Yup, Calamity Jayne is in it up to her hot pink snakeskin cowgirl boots and matching rhinestone belt. Tressa would tell you her momma never raised no dummies, but the jury's still out on that one.

Wildest Hearts


Jayne Ann Krentz - 1993
    She'd come to the elegant penthouse to meet Oliver Rain, the richest and possibly the most dangerous man in the Pacific Northwest. Annie needed this sensual, secretive corporate maverick for what she was about to propose. Marriage! With her brother Danny missing after a mysterious plane crash, Annie is struggling to protect his hot electronics company from the sharks who think he's not coming back. But fanciful, ethical Annie -- who usually runs a bizarre bric-a-brac shop knows Danny's alive, and she's determined to keep his company safe by putting his biggest investor at the helm. When Oliver actually says yes to the marriage of convenience, Annie dreamily envisions a few platonic weeks of helping him become a sensitive New Age guy. Oliver has a different plan; his cold, gorgeous eyes have been watching Annie, and he sees his chance to seduce the beautiful schemer. Love is the wild card destined to teach these two strong-willed opposites a lesson: icy control might run the business world, but all hell is about to break loose in the passionate territory of the heart.

Act Like It


Lucy Parker - 2015
    We all love to love a bad boy, but Richard's antics have made him Enemy Number One, breaking the hearts of fans across the city.Have the tides turned? Has English rose Lainie Graham made him into a new man?Sources say the mismatched pair has been spotted at multiple events, arm in arm and hip to hip. From fits of jealousy to longing looks and heated whispers, onlookers are stunned by this blooming romance.Could the rumors be right? Could this unlikely romance be the real thing? Or are these gifted stage actors playing us all?

A Reason to Breathe


C.P. Smith - 2014
    Jack Gunnison has a problem. Well, two, actually. One is 5'5", and the other? . . . A killer. Jennifer Stewart needs a change after losing her husband and sending her daughter off to College. Jenn moves to the high country of Colorado to start her life over and follow her dreams. Unfortunately, she gets more than she bargained for when she attracts the eye of a killer. Together, Jack and Jenn must figure out his identity before he strikes again.Mature readers only due to erotic content and language.

30 Days


K. Larsen - 2013
    Dealing with the loss of her only sister. A suicide attempt that doesn’t end in death and a husband who wants her inheritance. Elle’s life is a catastrophe. But she has a list and thirty things she’s determined to accomplish. Love isn't on that list but it comes crashing unexpectedly into her life. Boxing coach and personal trainer at the gym he co-owns, Colin’s content with his life. Until a chance meeting with a woman eating alone at a restaurant sets his heart in motion. As secrets unveil themselves his only goal becomes holding on to what he’s found.

The Hot Girl's Friend


Lisa Scott - 2011
    When Brady the bartender overhears her inspired, ludicrous excuses, he resolves to hook up Jane with his friends. But Jane would be quite happy with him. Pine along as Jane tries to find her own happily ever after.A short story of 12,000 words, or 48 typical book pages.This is one of the stories from the collection Flirts! 5 Romantic Short Stories. Buy the entire collection for just $2.99 (with fewer calories than your favorite cappuccino and probably cheaper, too!) Read them all, and discover the loose thread that ties them together.

Perfect for You


Kate Perry - 2012
    With Freya just hired to redesign the top adult website company in the country, her muse couldn't have chosen a worse time to disappear. Determined to get her sexy back, Freya puts an ad online, hoping to find the right man to inspire her. Unfortunately, all roads point back to her upstairs neighbor Greg Cavanaugh. He's everything she doesn't want: a playboy and scumbag lawyer. Except if he's so wrong for her, why does his touch feel like magic? And why does being with him make her believe anything is possible?

Wife for Hire


Christine Bell - 2012
    His mission? To expose the man who stole his sister’s money and dignity. All he needs is a “wife” who can play along. Too bad his last best hope is an actress who tries to mace him with perfume when he offers her the role of a lifetime.Lindy Knight is a real sap. She loves too hard, feels too deep, and often finds herself saying yes when she should be saying “Let me think about it.” She can’t believe her good fortune when Owen offers her more than enough money to hold off foreclosure until she can find a job. Three weeks at a resort, money she desperately needs, and she gets to help bring a criminal to justice? Score.It seems easy enough until the first time a couples bonding game turns intimate, and they realize how dangerous their mutual attraction could be. Can they keep their hands to themselves long enough to find the evidence Owen needs? Or are the close quarters more temptation than they can handle?

The Ladies' Room


Carolyn Brown - 2011
    But that doesn't mean that what Trudy overhears there during her great-aunt Gertrude's funeral won't change the rest of her life.Trudy has a daughter in the middle of a major rebellion; a two-timing husband who has been cheating for their entire married life; and a mother with Alzheimer's residing in the local nursing home. She doesn't really need a crumbling old house about to fall into nothing but a pile of memories and broken knickknacks. Billy Lee Tucker, resident oddball in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, lived next door to Gert, and in her will she leaves him the funds to help Trudy remodel the old house. That's fine with Billy Lee, because he's been in love with Trudy since before they started school. And just spending time with her is something he'd never ever allowed himself to dream about.A beautiful home rises up from the old house on Broadway, and right along with it rises up a relationship. But is Trudy too scarred from what she heard in the ladies' room to see a lovely future with Billy Lee?

Deadly Gamble


Linda Lael Miller - 2006
    She'd love to go deep undercover with an irresistibly hot cop, but he's got baggage as big as his biceps. She's survived a mysterious tragedy, but Mojo Sheepshanks hasn't quite figured out who she really is or how to get on with her life. And now the wisecracking Mojo is seeing ghosts--the real, ectoplasmic kind--and turning up baffling clues to her real identity. Suddenly a wealthy man is claiming to be her long-lost uncle... and she's being shadowed by an ex-con brother with a talent for killer mind games. As Mojo races to finally uncover the facts, she'll need all her savvy and strange new talent to keep someone from burying her--and the truth--for keeps.

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...

Someone Else's Fairytale


E.M. Tippetts - 2011
    It's the ideal fairytale... for most people. The last thing Chloe needs is public attention. It brings back dangers from the past that she's worked her whole life to escape.

Christmas at the Little Cornish Gift Shop


Rachel Griffiths - 2018
    Her dreams of making it as a screenwriter failed and she has no idea what to do next. 
Reality TV star Jake Woodhouse was delighted to find a small, isolated Cornish cottage to rent for the holidays. He aims to spend his days there in peace and quiet, licking his wounds – his only company his faithful, but stubborn, British bulldog, Sherlock Bones. 
But as Ruby and Jake are drawn together by the magic of the festive season and the Little Cornish Gift Shop, they both begin to realise that sometimes it is possible to learn to trust again, and that friendship can be the most valuable Christmas gift of all. 
 This is the first of three short stories in The Little Cornish Gift Shop series. 
Look out for Spring at The Little Cornish Gift Shop coming in 2019.