Book picks similar to
In Ruins by K.G. Reuss


reverse-harem
rh
bully
bully-romance

Scorned Princess


Eva Chance - 2021
    Marry a man I might eventually love, forge an alliance between his gang and my father's, and get out from under Dad's sadistic thumb.Turns out my fiancé has other plans. Like slaughtering me and my entire family the night before the wedding.I make it out alive, left with nothing but a thirst for vengeance. But if I want to crush the prick who betrayed me, I have to turn to the biggest pricks of them all.Hot, cocky, and dangerous, Wylder Noble and his men rule Paradise Bend. Their help doesn't come cheap. I've got to prove I'm strong enough to deserve it.Whatever they throw at me, I can take it. No taunting words or scorching looks will break the wall around my heart.They think I'm made of glass? I'm a girl of shards that can cut you to the bone.Before this is over, someone's going to bleed. And this time, it won't be me.*Scorned Princess is the first in a new gritty contemporary romance series from bestselling author Eva Chase (writing as Eva Chance) and Harlow King. No major triggers, but be prepared for domineering men who make their own rules, a rebellious heroine who's not afraid to get her hands dirty, and an enemies-to-lovers romance where the girl gets all the guys. It's going to be a wild, bloody ride!*

Wolf


Penelope Black - 2020
    So when she invites me to stay with her for the summer, I don't hesitate.And I make a new summer plan: skip the vacation, take online courses, and dig up dirt on Mom's new fiancé.What I didn't plan for was Wolf Fitzgerald--and his brothers. Dangerously good-looking with tattoos and bad attitudes.And my new stepbrothers.

Glass Heart Savage


Lindsey Iler - 2020
    𝘋𝘌𝘊𝘌𝘐𝘛. 𝘗𝘙𝘐𝘝𝘐𝘓𝘌𝘎𝘌.The elite come to play on the campus of Glass Heart Academy.𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐞𝐫My sister was their everything. I’m their nothing.They waited three hundred and sixty-five days after her disappearance to acknowledge I’m alive.Their wicked games should scare me.Except they don’t know I’m not much different than her.𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐤Palmer Weston isn’t anything like her sister.She’s sweet and naive. There are plenty of reasons why I should keep my distance.Except where’s the fun in that.I’m a boy who loves his toys and I’ve kept her on the shelf long enough.It seems someone is determined on giving Palmer the same fate as her sister.Problem is I’ve never been good at sharing.{Glass Heart Savage is the first book in the Glass Heart Academy Series.}

Bully


Penelope Douglas - 2013
    He doesn't call me that, though. He would never refer to me so informally, if he referred to me at all. No, he'll barely even speak to me.But he still won't leave me alone.We were best friends once. Then he turned on me and made it his mission to ruin my life. I've been humiliated, shut out, and gossiped about all through high school. His pranks and rumors got more sadistic as time wore on, and I made myself sick trying to stay out of his way. I even went to France for a year, just to avoid him.But I'm done hiding from him now, and there's no way in hell I'll allow him to ruin my senior year. He might not have changed, but I have. It's time to fight back. I'm not going to let him bully me anymore.***This novel contains adult/mature young adult situations. It is only suitable for ages 18+ due to language, violence, and sexual situations.

Reapers and Roses


A.R. Breck - 2019
    But no, her eyes hold the familiar darkness that calls to me.Alone, I live with my demons. Together, we will conquer them.Welcome to hell, baby girl.

Pretty Reckless


L.J. Shen - 2019
    Shen comes an intense, high school enemies-to-lovers romance with a twist. Penn They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I’d had four years to stew on what Daria Followhill did to me, and now my heart was completely iced. I took her first kiss. She took the only thing I loved. I was poor. She was rich. The good thing about circumstances? They can change. Fast. Now, I’m her parents’ latest shiny project. Her housemate. Her tormentor. The captain of the rival football team she hates so much. Yeah, baby girl, say it—I’m your foster brother. There’s a price to pay for ruining the only good thing in my life, and she’s about to shell out some serious tears. Daria Followhill thinks she is THE queen. I’m about to prove to her that she’s nothing but a spoiled princess. Daria Everyone loves a good old unapologetic punk. But being a bitch? Oh, you get slammed for every snarky comment, cynical eye roll, and foot you put in your adversaries’ way. The thing about stiletto heels is that they make a hell of a dent when you walk all over the people who try to hurt you. In Penn Scully’s case, I pierced his heart until he bled out, then left it in a trash can on a bright summer day. Four years ago, he asked me to save all my firsts for him. Now he lives across the hall, and I want nothing more than to be his last everything. His parting words when he gave me his heart were that nothing in this world is free. Now? Now he is making me pay.

Tarnished


Indie Black - 2021
    Instead, he made me fear the dark. He was supposed to love me. In the end, his love was sickening, cruel and filled with malice.Five years ago, the only bright lights in my world were extinguished. One decision. One text. One sentence and my fragile life shattered. I never expected the depravity and lies that greets me when I return to Montecito, leaving me with one goal... To flee and never look back.Everything changes when three gorgeous guys crash into my life. They’re determined to mark me as theirs, and make me question everything I hold true.But when the ghosts of my past and future collide, who will be left standing? Me… or the monster who coveted me for all of the wrong reasons, turning me into what I am today…Tarnished. *Tarnished is the first book in the Tainted by Ruin Trilogy and cannot be read as a standalone. It is a Dark High School Reverse Harem Romance that contains scenes that may be triggering to some. Including : sexual assault (minor), physical abuse & self harm. Recommended for readers 18+.

Dear Love, I Hate You


Eliah Greenwood - 2021
    And he definitely wasn’t supposed to answer it. We end up talking through letters and sticky notes in a book. One sticky note. Two sticky notes. Ten sticky notes. All baring our darkest, deepest secrets. It’s all fun and games until I find out who my pen pal is... Xavier Emery. King of my basketball-obsessed town, my childhood bully, and the guy I am in grave danger of falling in love with. But the rules were clear: we can never know who we’re talking to, and the confessions can never, ever get out. Seriously. It would destroy lives.  Fine by me. Even if Mr. Popular does find out his confidant is little old me, it’s not like he’d ever love me back…Right?

All About You


Joanna Mazurkiewicz - 2014
    I drag him down a road of humiliation and pain to try to cope with what his brother did to me. A few months after Christian’s passing, Oliver leaves town, and for the next two years, he is absent from my life. The demons claw their way back in, and I must learn to live with the secret that has destroyed me. Now I’m starting a new life, away from Gargle and away from my past, but everything crashes when I see Oliver the first day at university. It’s clear that many things have changed since we’ve been apart. Now he is captain of the rugby team and the most popular bloke on campus. Then he makes a bet and gives me an ultimatum: I leave Braxton forever and start somewhere else, or I stay and play his game… because he’s never forgotten that it was me who ruined his life two years ago.

Triple Threat


K. Webster - 2022
    I would never abandon my little sister. Hope comes in the form of a devilishly handsome man with dark eyes and darker secrets.With each encounter, I’m lured deeper into the labyrinth. The danger lurking beneath his surface calls to me, even as it warns me away.Except there’s a new side of him every time we meet. A different danger each time we touch. It’s as if three different men want to devour me.He’s not just one villain. He’s three.

Rising


Jessica Ruben - 2018
    Anonymity is key in my neighborhood—particularly as a lone female walking at night. All I want is to leave my crime-ridden shadow of a home in New York City. I’ve done everything I can to keep my head down and focus on my studies. College is my only goal; love has never been on the map… That is, until my sister brings me to an underground fight, where I meet a gorgeous and mysterious man: Vincent. He is the ghost in my shadows, showing up to feed me pieces of his upper-crust life, then evaporating into darkness until his next visit. I’m falling hard and fast. How can I trust him amidst the depth of his secrets? Vincent may be even more dangerous than the dark world I’m trying to escape.

Hated You Then


M. Robinson - 2019
    Robinson. A coming of age, enemies to lovers, contemporary romance filled with angst and all the feels. I couldn’t remember a time before her... Harley Jameson. Before she owned me.Hated Me.Needed me.Before I hated her…Things were simple. We had an understanding. Bully. Fight. Hate. It’s what we did.Mind. Body. Soul. It’s how we loved.I thought nothing would ever change that, until everything did. She was mine. Always had been. Always would be. Nothing altered that.Not how much I hated her.Not how much she hated me. Especially, not how much I hated… That I LOVED her.

Four


Sara Cate - 2021
    They say family is a circle of strength. But when mine is ripped away from me at the hands of a monster, My strength is all that’s left. I’ll give my last breath before they take anything else from me. Even if I’m the one they wanted all along. Find Silas Black. Those were my father’s last words. So I did. Only, I found so much more than just a man who was prepared to help me get my revenge. I found a tortured soul who in return gave me hope. But I also found his broken sons. One hates me. One desires me. And Silas wants to save me. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but If I keep getting caught up in the heat of the moment, I’ll be my own demise.

Here Lives a Corpse


C.L. Matthews - 2020
    Here Lives a Corpse is 92,000 words.Here Lives a Corpse is book one of a five-part series. You do have to read all to understand. Each one ends on a cliffhanger. Life doesn’t promise anything but existence.Losing Cass proved that.Everyone thinks I’m crazy.Corpse.Freak.Vampire.They called me the one who never overcame the loss of her brother, the outcast, the least likely to succeed.But what about their lies?He jumped. He wanted to die. He killed himself.When will they stop?Unraveling the secrets they founded this town with seems impossible.Detangling the bloodlines that weave the very essence of Arcadia Crest might actually kill me.Forgetting the little details I’ve erased from my memories as a result of love could be the catalyst of my entire story.Death brought me hatred.Hatred drove me to them.They touched me only in secret.All stories end in blood, but an oath was never part of that equation.

King of Corium


C. Hallman - 2021
    Assassins, mafia leaders, arms dealers and art thieves.You name it, this college houses them.Here nothing can touch them.Upon arriving I knew Aspen would be here, she was the daughter of our enemy, a snake in the grass like her father. I had no intention of sparring with her. That is until she opened her pretty little mouth. One sentence and she became my next target, and a woman that I would do anything to see on her knees at my feet.If she thought the university was the only nightmare she would have to face, she was wrong.I was the king, and this was my kingdom.**King of Corium is a dark romance novel, that contains dark themes, including dub-con, non-con. It is not a standalone novel.**