Book picks similar to
On Pointe by Shelly Ellis


romance
contemporary
contemporary-romance
novella

Brides of Legend: A Medieval Romance Collection


Kathryn Le Veque - 2019
    Over a thousand pages of Medieval Pageantry written by a critically acclaimed author - purchase this limited edition set or read for free in KINDLE UNLIMITED! Where Romance and Legend meet among the gently rolling hills of England, romance is born. Powerful men and their legendary brides come together in a limited-edition bundle that is a must-have for your Le Veque library. Delight in the drama and passion of these highly rated Medieval romances, including: The Legend – A legendary knight lays down his sword because of a terrible accident. Will his unexpected wife heal his heart? (Voted a reader favorite!) Beast – One of Le Veque’s most highly acclaimed books, the jailer of Joan d’Arc settles back in England after the death of Joan only to discover his relation to her is a deadly curse. Will his wife agree? Lord of Winter - The mentor to many great Le Veque knights conquers his great challenge in Bowes Castle… and the woman who lives there. The Iron Knight – A seasoned knight meets an older widow with a daughter… and an unexpected love story blooms. **Bonus book: Of Love and Legend – An outlaw known as the Greenhead Ghost meets his match in a lady sheriff. Pick up your copy of some of Le Veque's best books to date - it's knights and their legendary brides from the #1 bestselling Medieval Romance author! Note: These are previously published novels, bundled into one limited edition collection at a special low price.

Picking Bones from Ash


Marie Mutsuki Mockett - 2009
    And that is to be fiercely, inarguably and masterfully talented.No one knows who fathered eleven-year-old Satomi, and the women of her 1950s Japanese mountain town find her mother's restless sensuality a threat. Satomi's success in piano competitions has always won respect, saving her and her mother from complete ostracism. But when her mother's growing ambition tests this delicate social balance, Satomi's gift is not enough to protect them. Eventually, Satomi is pushed to make a drastic decision in order to begin her life anew. Years later, Satomi's choices echo in the life of her American daughter, Rumi, a gifted authenticator of Asian antiques. Rumi has always believed her mother to be dead, but when Rumi begins to see a ghost, she wonders: Is this the spirit of her mother? If so, what happened to Satomi?Picking Bones from Ash explores the struggles women face in accepting their talents, and asks what happens when mothers and daughters dare to question the debt owed each other. Fusing imagination and suspense, Marie Mutsuki Mockett builds a lavish world in which characters journey from Buddhist temples to the black market of international antiques in California, as they struggle to understand each other across cultures and generations."Marie Mockett brings postwar Japan into the 21st Century with sensitivity and grace, drawing the lives of three women to illuminate the tension between two cultures. Picking Bones from Ash is a lovely book."—KIT REED"In Marie Mockett's first novel—which ranges in confident and lovely prose from a mountain town in mid-century Japan to an antiques business in contemporary San Francisco—temples, ghosts, and oni demons aren't inert markers of exoticism: they're embedded in a lived web of human relationships and everyday tasks. Beginning in a world as solid as Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, Picking Bones from Ash takes the reader down a rabbit-hole as matter-of-factly supernatural as that of Haruki Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This wiry and delicate novel, as grounded as it is surreal, goes down like a tall glass of water. Except it's spiked: like Rumi, the younger of Mockett's two heroines, you will be haunted until you finish this book." —ELLIS AVERY"Remarkable and arresting, this debut has the pleasures of a fairy tale and a novel at the same time. Mockett probes the family mythology of a very peculiar line of talented Japanese women who may or may not be descended from the Princess of the Moon, and spins the tale of how they survived post-war Japan, modernity and life in America. A spellbinding new talent." —ALEXANDER CHEE "Mockett has made an impressive debut with Picking Bones from Ash. Here, she creates a fully-absorbing world with vivid characters who search for what was painfully lost to them. Mockett is a beautiful writer." —MIN JIN LEE, author of Free Food for Millionaires

Can't Escape Love


Alyssa Cole - 2019
    She's finally taking her pop culture-centered media enterprise, Girls with Glasses, to the next level, but the stress is forcing her to face a familiar supervillain: insomnia. The only thing that helps her sleep when things get this bad is the deep, soothing voice of puzzle-obsessed live streamer Gustave Nguyen. The problem? His archive has been deleted.Gus has been tasked with creating an escape room themed around a romance anime…except he knows nothing about romance or anime. Then mega-nerd and anime expert Reggie comes calling, and they make a trade: his voice for her knowledge. But when their online friendship has IRL chemistry, will they be able to escape love?

Back Again


Susan May - 2014
    An angry young woman makes a fatal mistake, taking them on a collision course which will smash their lives to pieces.​Since childhood, Dawn has "lost time." She awakens in strange places, far away from her last memory. Now she's just trying to be a good mom to her son while the fear of another blackout episode looms over her.Kylie is over her dead-end cashier job. Her boss is on her back, an ex-boyfriend won’t stop harassing her and she hates the world. As she drives from the supermarket lot, she picks up her cell to send a text. In the next terrifying moment, she’ll realize the gravity of her mistake when Dawn’s and her destiny collide.All is not lost though, for Dawn’s “lost time” now turns out to be an incredible gift. She discovers herself back again, reliving the most dreadful day of her life. Changing fate is now within her power, except fate doesn’t want a new course.To save her son and free herself from repeating a nightmare forever, she will need to discover an elusive, simple truth before time runs out.From international best-selling author Susan May comes a unique time travel story of hope, forgiveness and a mother’s tenacious love. It will touch your heart and might just change your life too.

His Convenient Husband


Robin Covington - 2017
    He lives his life as quietly as his job allows, playing ball to support his family but trying not to draw unwanted attention. His quiet life is shaken up when a mutual friend introduces him to Victor, a visiting principal ballet dancer who is everything Isaiah is not.Brash and loud, Victor Aleksandrov has applied for political asylum to avoid returning to Russia, where gay men are targeted and persecuted. He’s been outspoken about gay rights in his home country, and if he doesn’t get asylum, going back to Russia is a death sentence.Their one-night stand turns into a tentative friendship, a relationship they both agree is temporary... until Victor’s denied asylum. Isaiah can’t offer Victor a happily ever after, but he can propose something that’ll keep Victor in the US and safe... marriage. He just doesn’t expect his new husband to dance away with his heart.

Grading Curves


Naima Simone - 2019
    I didn’t know him when he taught me about the kind of pleasure I’d only read about in kinky millionaire romances. I didn’t know that when I walked into my college classroom the next morning the man who’d inked my skin and dirtied my body would be sitting in front of me. Dean Shaw is my student. My secret. And my downfall if the truth about us comes out. The problem is, he’s also everything I crave and can’t let go…

Go Deep


Rilzy Adams - 2020
    Her readers are fed up of her stale plots and Navaya can’t blame them. She’s been celibate for over a year and a half since finding her now ex-boyfriend’s side chick’s positive pregnancy test on her bathroom counter. How can she write steamy romances if she can barely remember which body parts go into the other? Navaya enlists the help of her best friend, Xander, to revive the inspiration that used to have her sitting comfortably at the top of her game. What happens when the sex hits deeper than either of them expected and the tender emotions can no longer be denied? Navaya and Xander’s arrangement has gone far deeper than intended. Will their friendship and their hearts survive the fall?

Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class


Larry Tye - 2004
    They quickly signed up to serve as maid, waiter, concierge, nanny, and occasionally doctor and undertaker to cars full of white passengers, making the Pullman Company the largest employer of African Americans in the country by the 1920s.Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter and the vital cultural, political, and economic roles they played as forerunners of the modern black middle class. Rising from the Rails provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon.

Dog Days of Voodoo


G.A. Chase - 2017
    Kendell Summer, lead guitarist for Polly Urethane and the Strippers, has always been interested in the unexplained. So when she sets off on a paranormal research romp with Myles, a former classmate, to explore his skills in psychometry, she’s ready for a little adventure. But she gets more than she bargained for when her Lhasa apso, Cheesecake, is dognapped. Kendell will do whatever it takes to get her dog back. While rescuing the pup, Kendell and Myles learn that the touristy glitz of New Orleans’ voodoo shops hides a dark history few understand—a truth that some in the city plan to use for their own gain. Soon they uncover more than they ever wanted to know about New Orleans’ unsavory past and a curse that threatens to change everything. Only Kendell can prevent the evil they’ve uncovered from doing more damage, but she’ll need Myles’s support and psychometric abilities—and the vigilance of the ever-watchful Cheesecake.

The Continuum


Wendy Nikel - 2018
    For years, Elise has been donning corsets, sneaking into castles, and lying through her teeth to enforce the Place in Time Travel Agency's ten essential rules of time travel. Someone has to ensure that travel to the past isn't abused, and most days she welcomes the challenge of tracking down and retrieving clients who have run into trouble on their historical vacations.But when a dangerous secret organization kidnaps her and coerces her into jumping to the future on a high-stakes assignment, she's got more to worry about than just the time-space continuum. For the first time ever, she's the one out-of-date, out of place, and quickly running out of time.

I Think I Might Love You


Christina C. Jones - 2019
     Unfortunately for Kadan Davenport, she also seems to be a magnet for him - even after a disastrous first impression that leaves him - literally - black and blue. Jaclyn is busy trying to find some sort of balance, and Kadan is just trying not to get swept up in the chaos. In a small city like Blakewood, it's hard to avoid each other... especially when each additional encounter makes them wonder if they really want to. "I Think I Might Love You" is a first-in-series novella.

Chasing Shadows


T.A. Williams - 2017
    And then the accident happened. The Present Day: Left blind and without her family, Amy feels she needs to get away. On a trip along the Camino, she is accompanied by the mysterious and troubled Luke. Having been set up to help Amy by a mutual friend, Luke finds he is also running from his past…1314: A Templar Knight, Luc, is also running. He meets the wife of a former comrade, now blinded in a terrifying attack: Aimee. Taking her under his wing, they must journey together through a dangerous world. As they travel through the stunning scenery of Northern Spain, this couple, so very like Luke and Amy, emerge from the shadows of time carrying a treasure of inestimable value. Chasing Shadows is an enchanting novel about the search for happiness, fulfilment… and love. Praise for T. A. Williams ‘T. A. Williams has that gorgeous way of writing a feel good story and something which will easily make you smile… he’s absolutely backed up that men can write chick-lit.’ Reviewed The Book‘Fantastic story by an entertaining author!’ Gilbster‘A superbly crafted, heartwarming tale’ Splashes into Books‘I had my doubts as to whether a ‘bloke’ would get it! To get beneath the skin of a woman and process how she'd feel in various scenarios. Let's just say I don't have any longer – you nailed it.’ Crooksonbooks

People of the Morning Star


W. Michael Gear - 2014
    Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear begin the stunning saga of the North American equivalent of ancient Rome in People of the Morning Star. The city of Cahokia, at its height, covered more than six square miles around what is now St. Louis and included structures more than ten stories high. Cahokian warriors and traders roamed from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. What force on earth would motivate hundreds of thousands of people to pick up, move hundreds of miles, and once plopped down amidst a polyglot of strangers, build an incredible city?A religious miracle: the Cahokians believed that the divine hero Morning Star had been resurrected in the flesh. But not all is fine and stable in glorious Cahokia. To the astonishment of the ruling clan, an attempt is made on the living god's life. Now it is up to Morning Star's aunt, Matron Blue Heron, to keep it quiet until she can uncover the plot and bring the culprits to justice. If she fails, Cahokia will be torn asunder in warfare, rage, and blood as civil war consumes them all.

Office Hours


Katrina Jackson - 2020
    Deja Evans, it sucks. Hard. Every day. Between the class prep, the meetings, grading student work, trying to find time to complete her own research and the meetings, she didn't have a life, she had a digital calendar that decided whether she got to wallow in her feelings at 3pm or 7pm, on Thursday or maybe Sunday. And the worst meeting of them all was the two-and-a-half-hour, once a month Faculty Senate, which was drier than her dating life, duller than her skin in winter and far longer than her attention span. The only thing that made those never-ending Faculty Senate meetings bearable was watching Dr. Alejandro Mendoza, Associate Professor of History, breathe. For years, Deja had harbored a kind of secret crush on the sexiest man on campus never thinking that he would ever feel the same, until one unexpected day, they have a steamy after hours encounter in her office and suddenly her life seems much more exciting.That lasts about half a minute. Over the course of a hectic academic year, Deja tries to survive her classes, help her students, prepare herself for her third-year review, and most important of all, she has to learn how to get out of her own way and just let Alejandro love her.

The Isles of the Blest


Morgan Llywelyn - 1989
    Willingly, he lets himself become intoxicated by the surreal beauty of a fairy-woman who offers to take him to a far away, forbidden land where all his desires will be fulfilled. He welcomes the opportunity to be away from the gruesome war that has consumed his life for so long, but what price will the warrior pay to be in a land void of death, loss and pain? Does the pleasure of the company of the stunning stranger outweigh the price he must pay to remain in The Isles of the Blest?