Book picks similar to
Luke by Angela Verdenius


romance
bbw
contemporary-romance
not-interested

My Curvy Valentine


Sugar Jamison - 2015
    Life is pretty sweet until her brother's best friend opens a bakery beneath her apartment. The smells from the bakery are tantalizing, and so is it's sexy pastry chef owner. Too bad Maggie has known Alex all her life and wants nothing to do with the boy who used to pull her hair, even though he's turned into a man that's just as delectable as the food he makes.Love tastes a little sweeter...World class pastry chef Alex Sanna was told his entire life that only women belonged in the kitchen. After years of working in New York's best restaurants he decides to return to his hometown to open a bakery and prove to his father that real men aren't afraid of getting a little flour on their hands. He's worked hard to get where he is, but his career and his bakery are depending on the Valentine's Day ball he's catering to be a success. All of his focus should be on perfecting his pastry, but his neighbor Maggie is driving him crazy. She's grown from the awkward girl he used to know into a delicious woman who he can't seem to get enough of.Will a disapproving brother and a pining ex get in their way? Or will Maggie and Alex find love on Valentine's Day?

The Curvy Astronomer and the Cowboy


Victoria Wessex - 2014
    She lives on the road, making just enough from her photos to survive. But for her latest assignment, she’ll have to find somewhere that’s really, REALLY dark—some place far away from all civilization.Cowboy Troy knows horses, not the Horsehead nebula. He agrees to take the stubborn scientist out to a tiny cabin in the mountains, rather than see her get lost…but a blizzard traps them there, miles from the nearest living soul.A Wyoming winter can be dangerous: howling winds, blizzards, even bears. Can Troy protect the curvy stargazer…and tell her he’s fallen for her? And will loner Emily really want to stop running, settle down…and start a family?

One of a Kind


Kayt Miller - 2017
    She’s quirky, klutzy, and would much rather be home eating her weight in cheesy puffs than hob-knobbing it with the rich and almost famous. Out of her element and her mind most of the time, MacKenzie is shocked when a sexy stranger gives her the best kiss of her life just as the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. Sadly, she’ll never know who he is because he kissed her and bolted. It doesn’t matter that man is totally out of her league. Sam Stone is no ordinary man. He’s an ex-marine and the head of his own security company. He’s big, strong, and definitely not looking to settle down. That is until he spots the peculiar redhead while working a job at an extravagant New Year’s Eve party. She’s a rose among thorns. A true beauty with crystal-blue eyes, shiny auburn locks, and freckles that run rampant across the bridge of her nose. Or maybe it’s her abundant curves or the fact that she’s nothing like the rich, pretentious jerks at this party that draws him to her. All he knows is watching her has been the highlight of his evening. Whoever she is, she’s one-of-a-kind, and a woman like her deserves to be kissed as the clock strikes midnight and Sam’s just the man to do it.This book is intended for a mature audience––ages 18+. It is a stand-alone with a sexy hero and an HEA.

The Wingman


Natasha Anders - 2017
    But their attraction is undeniable. Introverted Daisy McGregor is used to being a wallflower, but what she lacks in style, she makes up for with an acerbic wit, a passion for life, and a deep devotion to her family. So she’ll suffer through her sister Dahlia’s bachelorette party and accept the cloud of pity for going stag to the wedding.Out at the pub, sexy bad boy Mason Carlisle is a reluctant wingman tasked with entertaining Daisy while his brother flirts with her oldest sister, Daffodil. When the plan fails and Mason’s true intent is revealed, he feels intense guilt—and a sensual spark of desire for the unlikeliest of women.Daisy decides to use this unfortunate encounter to her advantage: to make it up to her, Mason will be another kind of wingman, playing the role of her boyfriend and wedding date. Will their ruse unravel completely—or will Mason and Daisy’s undeniable attraction ignite a scorching love affair that knows no rules?

Sommersgate House


Kristen Ashley - 2011
    Julia Fairfax is his stubborn American sister-in-law. After tragedy strikes, Douglas and Julia are forced to live together at Sommersgate and raise their newly orphaned nieces and nephew. Douglas has no desire to raise his dead sister’s children nor does he want the distraction of the tempting Julia living under his roof. Julia is struggling with grief and trying to make a go in a new country without much help from impossibly handsome but even more impossibly remote Douglas. Not to mention, she has to deal with the active hostility of Douglas’s frosty, Attila-the-Hun-in-a-skirt mother, Monique. Douglas decides the best way to give the children what they need, get his mother to behave and give himself what he wants is to marry Julia. When he tells her (yes, tells her) she will be his wife, Julia thinks Douglas is (probably) insane. And anyway, she’s decided if she ever has another husband (since the last one wasn’t so great), he was going to be short, balding, have a paunch and worship the ground she walks on (none of these characteristics define Douglas in the slightest). One more thing, Sommersgate House is haunted by the ghosts of the man who built the house and the woman who was the love of his life. They both died mysteriously at Sommersgate months after it was finished. When they did, a curse settled on the house making it seem strangely alive. And the only way for the beautiful but frightening house to rid itself of this curse is for its owner to find true love.

Arresting Holli


Lissa Matthews - 2013
    This is her one chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of her successful decorating business. The plan this year: a trip to New York City to see all the sights and lights. What the plan didn’t include was a side trip to a small town jail in the middle of Pennsylvania. Nor did it include Officer Hunky. However... Single police officer, Michael, is working the holidays — again. With no local family and no interest in accepting the pity invitations to Christmas dinner from his married friends, he’s content to work and earn extra cash. Besides, this year looks to be as uneventful as every other year. Until he pulls a curvaceous spitfire over for speeding and discovers she’s wanted on charges of fraud. As Michael begins to investigate and learns that Holli isn’t who her file says she is, sexual tension spikes between them. Answers are slow in coming due to the holidays, but Michael is soon granted permission to remove Holli from the jail cell and place her under supervised house arrest. Only, his idea of house arrest is much more personal than the law ever intended. Warning: Gourmet food, melting marshmallows, snowball fights, and handcuffs... What more could a girl want for a New Year's celebration? Previously published as Arrested Holiday by Loose Id, LLC

Trouble with the Guy Next Door


Holly Renee - 2017
    From the author of Where Good Girls Go to Die, comes a fun, passionate friends-to-lovers romance that readers say "took all of my insecurities, wants, thoughts, fantasies, and needs and brought them to life." -Beauty and the BooksGuys like Tucker Moore don't date girls like me.His boring ol' washboard abs look like they were sculpted by the gods, and I have more curves than a backroad in a country song.He can charm the panties off anyone, but I am better off hiding behind my camera lens.He's my next-door neighbor and the definition of a bad idea.I have no business thinking about him, and I should have pushed him out of my dreams the moment he showed up.I'd have been better off not tempting him into anything more when I should have been walking straight into the friend-zone.Which I do, faster than he can say "Just friends."It doesn't matter that he spends more time in my apartment than his or that he smiles at me in a way that makes my stomach flip.That's just Tucker.Before I know it, he's my best friend.And completely off-limits.A weekend away is our downfall, and I pack my bag so full, I can't fit my logic.Because Tucker would be fine.But I'd end up in Trouble with the Guy Next Door.

Making Changes


Lila Rose - 2017
     Four years with my knight in dented armor. Two years with my knight in rusted armor. It is time to make a change. Time to find myself, even if it scares the hell out of me. I, Makenzie Mayfair, am leaving my husband. This is my chance to begin again, to rip my backbone out and yell, “I’ve found it.” It may take time, it may take new friends, a job and even a jerk of a boss who is annoyingly handsome, but I will get there. I'm determined to be who I want to be, and plan to have a whole heap of fun along the way.

Love's Taming


Maryann Jordan - 2014
    And boring. Between focusing on keeping her small, inner-city clinic running, paying off student loans, and living in the tiny apartment above the clinic she has no time for fun or dating and certainly not for anything adventurous. Then one night, danger and surprise show up in the alley behind her clinic. And Annie is in for the ride of her life. Stoney is a mystery. A man of few words but smoldering looks. She decides to take a risk and after a night of passion finds herself thrown into a world that she never knew existed. A world of drugs, danger and intrigue. Shane is a detective, who vows to keep Annie safe at all costs. Losing his heart to her is the easy part. Keeping her safe and earning her trust will prove to be his most difficult task. **DUE TO ADULT CONTENT, SEXUAL SCENES OF AN EXPLICIT NATURE, AND LANGUAGE THAT SOME MAY CONSIDER CRUDE, 18+ only, please. **NO cliffhanger, HEA, inter-connected stand alone stories in the series**

Take Me


Bella Andre - 2005
    The kind of voluptuous body she fears Travis Carson, the man she's always loved from afar, would never crave. But Lily is about to be proved wrong. Her adventure begins when the demure San Francisco interior decorator agrees to model a plus-size dress for her fashion designer sister. Watching this sensual beauty move down the runway, Travis can't believe it's the same Lily he's always known—and always rejected. In a whirlwind of electric attraction, Lily is soon moaning Travis's name in his bed, not just in her wild fantasies. But Lily is all too aware that she's nothing like his past lovers. Determined to beat Travis at his own game by guarding her true feelings, Lily partners with him on a business deal that takes them all the way to Italy. In the seductive warmth of the Tuscan sun, Lily plays a game of desire with the hot-blooded Travis. Will she be burned by an all-consuming ecstasy or will Travis open his heart to the sexy, exciting, and lasting love she has to offer?

The V-Spot


Wendy S. Marcus - 2014
    You're a curvy, cute and practical nurse, ready to unleash your inner naughty nymphette for your 25th birthday. You start with...a. Chocolate cake.b. Champagne. Lots of it.c. A blind date set up by your daring best friend. 2. Your guy turns out to be popular (and insanely hot) wrestler Brody "The Bull" Bullock. You...a. Run for the door.b. Admire his hotness, then run for the door.c. Imagine him naked.3. You're meeting Brody at The V-Spot, a "Voyeur Motel." What are you wearing?a. A cute sundress with wedge sandalsb. You're not going anywhere without Spanxc. Doesn't matter. Brody is sexy enough that it's all coming off!If you selected all of the above, you're in for the night of your life....

Waterfront Café


Mia Malone - 2019
    In Maine." Marie isn't sure what a hippie does, precisely, but she knows one thing; Her life is dull. It is no fun at all to be a divorced widow, or possibly a widowed divorcee, with kids who have left for college never to be seen and a job that pays well but isn't interesting anymore, if it ever was. Brody has worked as a chef in big cities all over the country, and it has left him with nothing but a bitter taste in his mouth and no life. Not sure what else to do, he moves home to a small town on the coast of Maine and takes over his uncle's worn down restaurant, hoping that things will improve. He isn't depressed. Not at all. He just doesn't remember how to laugh anymore. Waterfront Café is a story about a small community, a pink house, a few lobster subs, and two people looking for more, each trying to move on from something that wasn't bad. It just wasn't all that great.Please note: This book contains crude words and somewhat explicit adult scenes. If this isn't your thing, then this book might not be for you.

Wrapped Around Your Finger


Fallon Blake - 2010
    When she's offered a job as a sushi model for one of Miami's trendiest restaurants, she jumps at the chance. Little does this country-mouse-turned-city-vixen know that what starts out as a modeling job will end up the answer to all of her kinkiest fantasies. Three days serving as a sub to this hot chef is too tempting an offer to refuse.Banner Faust has worked his ass off and sacrificed his love life to become a rock star in the culinary world. On what should be the biggest night of his career, he realizes something is missing from his life-the submissive woman he's always craved. The curvy new model with the blue-streaked hair and innate submissive nature just might be the one he's been waiting for. And when he gets her home-and in his bed-he soon realizes three days will never be enough.

Pitch Please


Lani Lynn Vale - 2017
    But Hancock has heard them his entire life from his parents. His family has lived and breathed baseball even before he started little league.Hancock “Parts” Peters has a name that inspires grins across many faces, but the moment those faces get their first look at him, those grins slide away.Hancock is gruff, filterless, and doesn’t give a crap who he offends. He is the only man in baseball who doesn’t care if he gets an endorsement or not. He’s there to play the game. He’s there to win. He’s there because baseball is his life.People think he’s a jerk.And maybe he is. But if that’s how he has to come off to get people to leave him the hell alone so he can play in peace, so be it. The less people he has to worry about offending, the better.***Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back. Sway Coffman didn’t mean to rock the boat. She was just there to do her job.Sure, she was a woman in a man’s world. Yes, she beat out several of those men to get the job as head athletic trainer for the professional baseball team, The Texas Lumberjacks. And yeah, she now got hate mail from those men.But she’s good at her job, and she earned the position.What she is not good at, however, is talking to men.Men seem to see her curvy hips, large breasts and thick thighs and automatically think she is incompetent. Because surely a fat girl couldn’t get the job treating some of the most fit and athletic men in the world, right?Wrong.This fat girl got the job, and she is proud of it.What else did she get?The attention of the sexiest bearded man she’d ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on.It was enough to bring to her down to her knees…in front of that man, the hot and grumpy baseball player, Hancock Peters.

On the Plus Side


Tabatha Vargo - 2013
    Both things she could do without. But even with her undesired millionaire status, she doesn’t hold on to false hopes of finding true love. So when a sexy stranger comes into her life dripping with seduction, she finds it hard to resist. The bigger they are the harder they fall and Lilly falls straight through the floor in love with Mr. Sexy. Too bad he’s there for all the wrong reasons. The chance of losing it all will make you do some crazy things and Devin’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep his life together. All seems lost when out of nowhere he’s approached by a Millionaire Momma with an offer he can’t refuse. But even a womanizer like Devin has a heart and when the short, chunky girl with the carefree attitude breaks through his icy façade, he finds that losing everything takes on a whole new meaning. ***Warning: this book contains graphic language, sex, and violence. Mature readers only. Not intended for young adult readers.***