Book picks similar to
The Viper by Amanda McKinney
romance
romantic-suspense
ku
mystery
The Vigilante's Lover
Annie Winters - 2015
Seduction. Bondage ropes. Descriptions of things Mia has never experienced or known. The man’s words are desperately passionate. He longs for a woman who must have given him a fake address. Mia’s address. She plans to send the letter back. He’s a convicted felon. But his words gnaw at her. She’s never done anything dangerous. And no man has ever talked to her like this. So Mia writes him, pretending to be the woman he desires. It's her one dark thrill in her dull, solitary small-town life. The man is in prison for another fifteen years. It's harmless. She is safe enough. Until he escapes.
The Devil's Daughter
Katee Robert - 2017
Ten years ago, Eden Collins left Clear Springs, Montana, and never once looked back. But when the bodies of murdered young women surface, their corpses violated and marked with tattoos worn by her mother’s followers, Eden, now an FBI agent, can’t turn a blind eye. To catch the killer, she’s going to have to return to the fold.Sheriff Zach Owens isn’t comfortable putting Eden in danger, even if she is an elite agent. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be so attracted to her. As calm and cool as she appears, he knows this can’t be a happy homecoming. Zach wants to protect her—from her mother, the cult, and the evil that lurks behind its locked gates. But Eden is his only key to the tight-lipped group, and she may just be closer to the killer than either one of them suspects…
Altered
Jennifer Rush - 2013
Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who has stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. Anna is torn between following Sam or staying behind in the safety of her everyday life. But her father pushes her to flee, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, at all costs. There’s just one problem. Sam and the boys don’t remember anything before living in the lab—not even their true identities.Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.
Mean Streak
Sandra Brown - 2014
Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina. By the time her husband Jeff, miffed over a recent argument, reports her missing, the trail has grown cold. Literally. Fog and ice encapsulate the mountainous wilderness and paralyze the search for her.While police suspect Jeff of "instant divorce," Emory, suffering from an unexplained head injury, regains consciousness and finds herself the captive of a man whose violent past is so dark that he won't even tell her his name. She's determined to escape him, and willing to take any risks necessary to survive. Unexpectedly, however, the two have a dangerous encounter with people who adhere to a code of justice all their own. At the center of the dispute is a desperate young woman whom Emory can't turn her back on, even if it means breaking the law. Wrong becomes right at the hands of the man who strikes fear, but also sparks passion.As her husband's deception is revealed, and the FBI closes in on her captor, Emory begins to wonder if the man with no name is, in fact, her rescuer from those who wish her dead - and from heartbreak.Combining the nail-biting suspense and potent storytelling that has made Sandra Brown one of the world's best loved authors, MEAN STREAK is a wildly compelling novel about love, deceit, and the choices we must make in order to survive.
Animal
Ker Dukey - 2020
That childhood bond turned to puppy love, and then pure, burning lust. We were biker brats, teenage misfits who only had eyes and hands for each other. But all that changed when our club found out her dad was a rat—an FBI informant trying to take down our empire. He betrayed his club. He betrayed his brothers. He betrayed her. He betrayed us. To tarnish the brotherhood legacy with such disloyalty and dishonor comes with swift retribution. Now, I’m forced to make a choice: my girl or my club. This will destroy her. Destroy us. In order to earn my patch, I have to take a traitor’s life—his. A dark, delicious, thrill ride, sure to have you turning the pages, desperate to see how it all ends.
The Bourbon Thief
Tiffany Reisz - 2016
The only item stolen—a million-dollar bottle of bourbon. The thief, a mysterious woman named Paris, claims the bottle is rightfully hers. After all, the label itself says it's property of the Maddox family who owned and operated Red Thread Bourbon distillery since the last days of the Civil War until the company went out of business for reasons no one knows… No one except Paris. In the small hours of a Louisville morning, Paris unspools the lurid tale of Tamara Maddox, heiress to the distillery that became an empire. But the family tree is rooted in tainted soil and has borne rotten fruit. Theirs is a legacy of wealth and power, but also of lies, secrets and sins of omission. The Maddoxes have bourbon in their blood—and blood in their bourbon. Why Paris wants the bottle of Red Thread remains a secret until the truth of her identity is at last revealed, and the century-old vengeance Tamara vowed against her family can finally be completed.
Wrong Number, Right Guy
Elle Casey - 2015
Her sister has sent out an SOS, but when May gets there, she’s nowhere to be found and May is the one in trouble—she’s wearing pink espadrilles, she’s got a Chihuahua in her purse, and she’s in the middle of a shootout.After tall, muscular Ozzie comes to her rescue, May has no choice but to follow him to safety. At the headquarters of his private security firm, the Bourbon Street Boys, she finds a refuge for the night—and the offer of a job. But it’s not long before a gun-toting stalker isn’t the only complication in May’s life: the more time she spends with Ozzie, the less she can deny that they’ve got some serious chemistry. A wrong number got her into this mess…Will it also get her the right guy?
Perilous Trust
Barbara Freethy - 2017
They were two tortured souls, looking for escape, and they weren't supposed to see each other ever again…Four years later, Sophie's FBI father, who is also Damon's mentor, is killed in a suspicious car crash after leaving Sophie a cryptic message to trust no one from the agency. When Damon shows up looking for her, she isn't sure if he's friend or enemy, but she knows he could easily rip apart what is left of her heart.The last thing Damon wants is to get involved with Sophie again. It was hard enough to walk away the first time. But she's in trouble, her father's reputation is under attack, and the lives of his fellow agents are at stake if there's a traitor in their midst. When someone starts shooting at them, they have no choice but to go on the run and off the grid. Everyone in their world becomes a suspect. They want to uncover the truth, but will it turn out to be the last thing they expect? Proving her father's innocence might just cost them their hearts…and their lives…
Whisper
Tal Bauer - 2018
On the battlefield, he meets Special Forces Sergeant David Haddad. David - Arab American, Muslim, and gay - becomes the man Kris loves, the man he lives for, and the man he kills for, through the long years of the raging wars.David Haddad thought he'd be an outsider his whole life. Too American for the Middle East, too Arab for America, and too gay to be Muslim. It took Kris to bring the parts of himself together, to make him the man he'd always wanted to be. But the War on Terror wreaks havoc on David's soul, threatening to shatter the fragile peace he's finally found with Kris.When a botched mission rips David from Kris's life, Kris's world falls into ruin and ash. A shell of the man who once loved with the strength to shake both the CIA and the world, he marks time on the edges of his life. The days bleed together, meaningless after losing the love of his life.After being captured, tortured to the edge of his life, and left for dead by his comrades, David doesn't know how much of himself is left. He vanished one day in the tribal belt of Pakistan, and the man who walks out almost a decade later is someone new: Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani.But strange rumblings are whispering through the CIA. Intelligence from multiple sources overseas points to something new. Something deadly, and moving to strike the United States. Intercepts say an army from Khorasan, the land of the dead where the Apocalypse of Islam will rise, is coming.And, at the head of this army, a shadowy figure the US hasn't seen before: Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani.David is coming
home.
The Girl in the Picture
Alexandra Monir - 2016
Now only one name haunts her through the halls of Oyster Bay Prep.The Girl in the Picture.After high school heartthrob Chace Porter is found dead in the woods near the school, the police are in search of the girl whose picture with Chace is the only clue found amongst his personal belongings. A girl who no one knew was even close to Chace–and whose dormmate, Lana Rivera, was Chace's girlfriend.Nicole is that girl and now she's the primary suspect in his murder. But what really happened that night? Were Nicole and Chace dating behind Lana’s back; were he and Lana over? Could either of them have killed him?Told in alternating points of view, that of our suspect, Nicole Morgan, and her former best friend and roommate, Lana Rivera, readers will piece together the story of a starcrossed love, a fractured friendship–and what really happened the night Chace was killed.
Believe Like a Child
Paige Dearth - 2011
Unable to live there, she runs away.Alone on the streets of North Philadelphia, she encounters more people who hurt her. About to hit rock bottom, Alessa breaks free from her new tormentors and finds refuge in a shelter for homeless and abused women.Wherever she goes, however, trouble keeps seeking her out, until she meets three people who change the course of her life. Though Alessa's bittersweet journey is fraught with challenges, she does, nevertheless, find fleeting moments of joy. Then, as she settles down, a ghost from the past comes to haunt her, threatening to destroy the very foundation of her small world and plunging her back into an abyss of despair, until she makes her final bid for escape.**WARNING** 18+ Readers Only. Graphic content and subject matter. (This is a standalone novel)
Veiled
Karina Halle - 2016
He had other plans for her.Death.It's something that Ada Palomino has always known so well, having grown up in a house of horrors, surrounded by a family plagued by ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night.But after the sudden and tragic death of her mother two years ago, death has never felt so personal. Or so close.Now eighteen, Ada is trying to move on with her life and the last month of summer holds nothing but sunshine and promises with her first year at a Portland design school just around the bend. That is until her increasingly violent and realistic dreams, dreams of other worlds, of portals and veils where her mother is tortured and souls bleed for mercy, start to blend into reality. Ada has to lean on her older sister, Perry, to try and make sense of it all but even then, she's never felt more alone. Then there's Jay. Tall, handsome and deeply mysterious, Jay would be just another stranger, a familiar face on the bus, if it wasn't for the fact that Ada has met him before. Every night. In every single dream. And the more that Ada is drawn to him in both worlds, the more she's in danger of losing everything. Including her heart.And her very soul.
Shoot to Thrill
Nina Bruhns - 2000
KYLE “KICK” JACKSON is a bona fide bad-ass. The product of a rough childhood and a youth spent proving how tough he was, Kick was the perfect CIA black-ops operative. Right up until the fateful mission that left his best friend dead and Kick in the hospital for months. They were betrayed…from the inside. Now his former bosses will stop at nothing, including kidnapping, to get him back to complete his mission.Unfortunately, there is a complication. A big one.LORRAINE “RAINIE” MARTIN is a fiercely dedicated ER nurse—-a vocation decided upon when her parents were killed in a brutal carjacking. But the impenetrable fortress of safety she has erected around herself and her heart do no good when she finds herself stranded in the unforgiving desert, dependent on a dangerous man without mercy for her very survival…and the only way home is to confront her worst fears
Pros & Cons of Vengeance
A.E. Wasp - 2018
FIVE CHANCES FOR REDEMPTION. One thing’s for sure: these men are no angels.*There’s nothing like being blackmailed by a dead man to really bring a group of cons together. And what a group we are: a hacker, a thief, a con artist, a thug, and a Federal agent with an axe to grind. The deal is simple, we do the jobs and Charlie’s lawyer wipes the slate clean for each of us, one at a time.Since job number one calls for some muscle, it looks like I’m up first. I’m Steele Alvarez, ex-Special Forces Close Protection Specialist (aka, a bodyguard for some not so nice guys).After learning what the job is — taking down a seemingly untouchable senator with a penchant for beating up young male prostitutes — I’m in. No questions. A bullet ought to do the trick.Then I met Senator Harlan’s latest victim: Breck Pfeiffer, the gorgeous hooker with a heart of gold and the soul of a fighter. One look at him and I’m gone. That kid laid me out harder than any punch ever did. I’ll do anything to protect Breck, even kill for him. But Breck doesn’t want the senator dead, he wants vengeance.If we’re going to find a way bring down the slimebag and get the blackest mark on my record erased, I’m going to need all the help I can get.Like it or not, we’re all in this together.
Altar of Bones
Philip Carter - 2011
“They didn’t have to kill him…He never drank from the altar of bones.” Cryptic dying words from a murdered homeless woman in present day San Francisco unlock a decades-buried secret that changed history. Now a pair of ruthless assassins are sent to cut the few living "loose ends." And a young, resourceful woman on the run encounters a determined man with his own connected past and vengeful agenda. Forced to partner for survival and answers, a fast-paced and deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, taking them across the globe from the winding streets of Paris to the faded palaces of Budapest to the frozen lakes of Mongolia...where destiny, passion, and further betrayal await them. The Altar of Bones has it all: The Russian mob. KGB spies. Presidential assasination. A doomed Hollywood legend. Deathbed confessions. Corrosive power. Shattered families. Guardians of an ancient religious icon housing a secret others will kill to possess. The dark promise of immortality. And it delivers on its ambitious premise to leave you stunned and breathless at the end.