Book picks similar to
Family Matters, an Anthology by C.J. Carmichael


carmichael-c-j
contemporary-romance
loves-another
shelf-c-authors

I See You


Ker Dukey - 2015
    I capture you in your vulnerability; that smile, your laugh, those tears. I document you and sell your secrets. When I watch you through my lens you’re mine until I pass you to the buyer. I, like most people, have a fetish for pretty things and in my job I get to be around a lot of pretty things. They pay me to watch them and capture them in a frame for many purposes, and sometimes I like my profession a little more than I should. I took a job to capture her… I wanted to capture and keep her in more than just the image. This time I will take myself away from the lens and become the client because I cannot resist her, she reminds me too much of my first, I need to have her.Traumatised from a vicious attack, Nina Drake finds herself shut off from the world until her neighbour brings her out of more than just her nightmares. Even after moving and changing her name, she still can’t shake the feeling of being watched. The memories are so close. And so is the shadow of the creator of them all.

Love Square


Jessica Ingro - 2013
    One look from him would make me melt. He was the one I always wanted to love me, but always seemed so far away. Now he stands before me and he's turning my world upside down. At one time I would have done anything to be close to him. But will that anything include betraying the man I pledged myself to and that loves me faithfully?Samantha Monroe had it all. Or at least everyone thought she did. A career on the rise, a gorgeous husband, great friends and a beautiful home. So why does she feel so alone and empty? When she reconnects with an old flame, lines are tested and compromises made in a quest for happiness.Jacob Matthews always wondered what happened to Sam Monroe. When fate brings them together after all these years, he can't help but wonder if its meant to be. But when he meets his perfect woman, there is no doubt in his mind she's his soul mate.Will the search for happiness cost them everything or will their love square show them what really matters?

Borrowing Amor Boxed Set: Books 1-3


Kat Bellemore - 2020
     Chile peppers, hot air balloons and white sand dunes mix with a small town mayor, a fake fiance, and a second chance at love. Borrowing Amor: Love is a nuisance when all you want is to disappear. Two weeks before Christmas, Katie is kicked out of her apartment. Again. Rather than wander the streets and continue to work for a dirty cop, she decides to leave the city and disappear for good. But her car breaks down in a small New Mexican town, and everything is threatened when she falls for the charming mayor. Sam Freedman is the first bachelor mayor of Amor. After convincing the locals that having a mayor without family responsibilities means he can dedicate all his time to the community, townspeople watch his every move. Then Katie Andersen shows up. Against Sam’s better judgement, he hires her to replace his event coordinator. Now he can barely think straight, let alone run a town. In the midst of half-truths and outright lies, Katie and Sam desperately search for the place where honesty and trust lead to love. But they have to find it before the past catches up with them. Borrowing Love: It’s better to have loved and lost, they said. They were wrong. Ruby Freedman hasn’t left the small town of Amor in four years--not since her husband died. The memory of his fateful accident was enough to cause her to sell her airplane, and never ride in a car again. Then Parker Loveland comes back to town. Now she has to add him to her list of things she intends to avoid.After years away, Parker Loveland is back in Amor to celebrate his parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary. He has worked hard to escape the clutches of his hometown, but when he runs into Ruby, the only girl he cared about in high school, and the only one that ever stood him up on a date, he’s torn between the embarrassment he felt more than a decade before, and his desire to be around her.Caught between memories of the past and fear of the future, it will take leaving Amor to help Ruby and Parker find the second chance they didn’t know they were looking for. Borrowing a Fiance:  She wanted freedom. She got a fiance instead. Melinda Garrett has been stuck managing her parent’s diner for over a decade, when all she had wanted was to go to college. When her younger sister gets married, Melinda reluctantly agrees to attend with her friend, Daniel, as her date. But when the pressure is on, she claims he is her fiance, in hopes that her parents’ opinion of selling the diner will change.Daniel Armstrong isn’t the kind of guy a girl takes home to meet her parents, but when he offers to attend a wedding as Melinda’s date, he finds himself labeled as her future spouse. Now, challenges lie around every corner, testing Melinda’s claim that she and Daniel are in love.

Playing For Keeps


Liz Matis - 2011
    Fresh from the battlegrounds of Iraq, reporting on a bunch of overgrown boys playing pro football is just the change of scenery she needs. If trying to be taken seriously in the world of sports writing wasn't hard enough, Ryan, her college crush, is only making it harder. As a tight-end for the team she's covering, he is strictly off limits. Ryan Terell is a playmaker on and off the field, but when Samantha uncovers his moves, he throws out the playbook. Just as he claims his sweetest victory, Samantha's investigation into a steroid scandal involving his team forces him to call a time-out to their off the record trysts. But then a life threatening injury on the field will force them both to decide just how far they'll go to win the game. Winner of the NERWA First Kiss Contest A Kindle Bestseller.

Falling into Infinity


Layne Harper - 2013
    A chance meeting with A&M’s star quarterback Colin McKinney changes everything. A friendship between the two grows over time and blossoms into a powerful love affair. Charlie and Colin must learn to cope with his transition to playing professional football, the crushing attention of the media, and constant demands of his fans. At the same time, she’s struggling with how her dream of attending medical school will fit into their already stressed relationship and Colin’s new life. Falling Into Infinity asks the question is just loving someone enough to make a relationship work?

On 4/19


Lisa Heaton - 2014
    Pleased to have found a woman too young to pique any personal interest and one who has aspirations of her own, he’s confident she will solve his dilemma of attending events alone. Tired of being considered available, John will use Chelsea as a smokescreen of sorts. She is kind and intelligent; the perfect protégé, a young woman he can help groom for the corporate world. Chelsea sits looking at the document before her – her only way out. It’s a deal that will allow her to finish her last year of school, and even more importantly, keep her from having to return home and face her past for at least another year. Anything would be better than that. So she will “date” a handsome, older man for a year. What was the harm in that? As the contract stipulates, John and Chelsea begin and end on 4/19 – no exceptions. After a year together, though, and as deepening feelings complicate what is supposed to be a business relationship, will walking away really be as easy as signing her name to a contract? Watch for John and Chelsea's story as it continues in Beyond 4/20. In this sequel, their deepening relationships with God and with one another will be what gives them strength to endure life's most difficult challenges. Also by Lisa Heaton, Unmending the Veil, in print or on Kindle

First Position


Prescott Lane - 2013
    Emory faces life’s challenges at the one place that’s never failed her, the ballet barre. But even the barre can’t steady her when fate brings her face-to-face with her old college flame, Mason, who’s hoping to return to the NFL after a career-threatening injury. Before they can surrender to their sexual desires and find salvation in each other’s arms, they need to come to terms with their past. Mason must confront the demons that have set him on a path of self-destruction, while Emory must decide whether to keep her painful secrets locked away, or expose them and risk losing the love of her life. But nothing can prepare Mason for what Emory has kept hidden, or the possibility that he himself may be to blame for the very secrets she keeps – and why they continue to haunt her.

Wrapped in Ink


Carrie Ann Ryan - 2019
    But when an accident lands him in the ER, Liam meets someone that might just be the distraction he needs.Arden Brady has spent her life in and out of hospitals. But according to the world, she doesn’t look sick. She’s lost jobs and friends because they don’t see beneath the surface, but she’s learned to rely on her family and herself to keep going. And then she meets Liam.With two sets of overprotective siblings and a puppy that can't help but get into everything, Liam and Arden might just fall harder than either one ever expected.

The Supermodel's Best Friend


Gretchen Galway - 2011
    Her best friend the supermodel is getting married to a billionaire -- what better place than their week-long wedding in a luxury eco-resort to find a new man? Lucy isn't picky; she just wants a decent guy who's eager to start a family. Someone as logical, responsible, and practical as she is.Definitely not the six-foot-five, fun-loving Miles Girard. Being totally hot and charming is not important. She doesn't need a man who makes her laugh. A man who makes her jump in his lap and kiss him. A man who is pathologically wary of marriage and thinks she needs him more than she needs a husband.Then again, Lucy's starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, she can't live without him . . . The sequel to this book is Diving In.

A Fresh Start In Holly Blue Bay


Cathy Blossom - 2018
     Daisy Clarke arrives in Holly Blue Bay at the request of the town’s mayor. The mayor wants Daisy to perform a marketing miracle on the town, and to increase the visitor numbers too. The town holds a special place in Daisy’s heart as something magical happened to her when she visited this place as a child. She’s determined to show the rest of the world how wonderful the town is, and will use all her marketing skills to do so. Jacob Smythe is a grumpy handyman who turns up at Daisy’s new office. She immediately mistakes him for someone else, which certainly breaks the ice between them. Just as Jacob is warming to Daisy, the mayor turns up and tells him why Daisy is in Holly Blue Bay. Jacob is furious and refuses to admit the town needs help, especially from an outsider. Things change over the next few days as Jacob and Daisy spend more time together. They find themselves drawn to each other, and love begins to grow. But then something terrible happens which results in Daisy deciding to leave Holly Blue Bay, and Jacob, behind. Can Jacob convince her to stay?

Sins Duet


C.D. Reiss - 2019
    Strat. A rock god who walked on air. Indy. A handsome musician smart enough to live through stardom. Me, a girl with everything to lose and nothing she wanted to keep. I loved them both. They say three's a crowd, but maybe I liked crowds...until the one thing I wanted to keep was stolen out of my arms. I left that world, straightened up, went to law school. I was fine until Indy walked back into my life to remind me of what I'd lost. They say there's no time like the present, but when the past shows up with an invoice there's gonna be hell to pay. ---- This bundle includes SECRET SINS and SACRED SINS, Margie Drazen's complete story!

Sweet Dreams


Nina Lane - 2016
    Sugar Rush Candy Company CEO Luke Stone is a devoted businessman who doesn't do relationships. He does short-term affairs with clearly defined rules. But when a sexy bohemian angel propositions him in a bar, Luke is tempted to want more. Polly Lockhart is horrified when she wakes the morning after her twenty-third birthday to realize she made a fool of herself with a sinfully delicious man. She tells herself she doesn't have time for romance anyway, as she's fighting to keep her mother's beloved bakery afloat and finish her culinary studies. That all changes when her class tours the famed Sugar Rush headquarters, and Polly collides with her dream man again. As she succumbs to their hot attraction, Polly soon realizes her bakery isn't the only thing that needs saving. Luke, driven and unyielding, will burn out unless someone convinces him to taste the sweetness of life. But can Polly remember this sugar rush is only temporary?

Broken Miles


Claire Kingsley - 2018
    I could feel it happening. Like she was gently unbuttoning the collar of a shirt that fit too tight.”Single-minded drive earned Roland Miles success—and cost him his first love. When his marriage to Zoe ended, he did the only thing he knew. He dove into work to put his heartbreak behind him.Zoe Sutton’s life hasn’t exactly gone to plan. She certainly didn’t plan on losing Roland or moving home to work for his family’s winery. Four years after their divorce, she wonders if her chance at happily ever after is behind her.After discovering his family might lose their land, Roland comes home to help sort out the mess. But between his brothers’ antics, a baby sister who’s all grown up, and a father keeping secrets, complicated isn’t even the half of it.And then there’s Zoe.He didn’t come home looking for a second chance with her. But the more time they spend together, the more he realizes what they lost. What they could have again.Because the truth is, they broke each other’s hearts. And maybe they’re the only ones who can put them back together.Author’s note: A stoic hero who’s soft on the inside. A sassy heroine who doesn’t take any sh*t. Messy family. Lots of shenanigans. Mattress burning bonfires. And a second chance at love with a big HEA.The Miles Family series are best enjoyed in order.

A Four Letter Word


Michelle Lee - 2013
    She has always felt she wasn’t Evan’s type and their friendship means too much to her to jeopardize. At a Halloween party, Zoey meets Griffin, something Evan isn’t too happy about. Zoey and Griffin’s budding relationship grows into something Zoey never thought she would find, that four letter word, love. When she is ready to marry Griffin, Evan decides to let his true feelings be known. Ultimately, Zoey has to decide, marry the one the currently loves, or be with the one she’s always loved.

Honky Tonk Angel


Abby Gray - 1998
    Ten years ago Clancy Morgan broke her heart and even though she’s made a successful life for herself, she’s never gotten over that pain. He made a big mistake… But maybe he can mend it, if only she’ll let him. Her friends cook up a crazy scheme to help her get over him once and for all, but his hopes are that he can use their plan to convince her that he still loves her. Then the hurricane hits… and all bets are off for everyone. If you liked any of the Honky Tonk series by Carolyn Brown such as: I Love This Bar, Hell Yeah, My Give a Damn’s Busted or Honky Tonk Christmas, you’ll enjoy this story of love and forgiveness.