Book picks similar to
Bright Midnight by Karina Halle


romance
contemporary
contemporary-romance
second-chance

Flawed Heart


Bella Jewel - 2015
    The man I married was strong, beautiful and pure. The man I married cherished our lives together. The man I married loved me.This...This isn't that man.One night. One accident. It changes everything.I wish I could tell you the exact moment he fell out of love with me. I wish I could tell you there was hope. That I hung on. That I fought. I wish I could tell you that we fixed it. That happily every after was just out of our grips.It wasn't. I ran, in the dead of the night, I packed my things and I left him.Now I'm back. He's still the same man. A deadly underground fighter for the House of Obsidian. He's still dangerous. He's still broken. I still love him.This is the part where I'm supposed to turn around and run... But I don't.

Good Girl Complex


Elle Kennedy - 2022
    So what could go wrong?Mackenzie "Mac" Cabot is a people pleaser. Her demanding parents. Her prep school friends. Her long-time boyfriend. It's exhausting, really, always following the rules. Unlike most twenty-year-olds, all she really wants to do is focus on growing her internet business, but first she must get a college degree at her parents' insistence. That means moving to the beachside town of Avalon Bay, a community made up of locals and the wealthy students of Garnet College.Mac's had plenty of practice suppressing her wilder impulses, but when she meets local bad boy Cooper Hartley, that ability is suddenly tested. Cooper is rough around the edges. Raw. Candid. A threat to her ordered existence. Their friendship soon becomes the realest thing in her life.Despite his disdain for the trust-fund kids he sees coming and going from his town, Cooper soon realizes Mac isn't just another rich clone and falls for her. Hard. But as Mac finally starts feeling accepted by Cooper and his friends, the secret he's been keeping from her threatens the only place she's ever felt at home.

Shuttergirl


C.D. Reiss - 2015
    A girl paparazzi. What could go wrong?I never forgot her. Not for one minute. Not from the last time I saw her, at seventeen, to today. I measured all women against her and all women came up short.But being with her was unfeasible in high school, and it’s taboo now.I see her sometimes, but I’ve never spoken to her. She runs, or I run. We’re in the same town, on the same block, in the same building, and the gulf between us is just too wide to cross.Until tonight.He was my high school crush, back when I lived in a world that didn’t want me. He was the perfect boy, and I was the outcast kid from the other side of town. And when he held my hand I thought I could fit in, just a little. I thought I could be his and he could be mine.Then he left, and my life fell apart.Now we are the king and queen of opposite sides of Hollywood. And we haven’t spoken a word to each other.Until tonight.

Forgiving Reed


C.A. Harms - 2014
    She had no choice but to move forward and give her son the best life she could. Which meant moving back home. Except there was one problem.Home was where Reed would be...The man who once held her heart, then shattered it into a million pieces. Grieving the loss of Rhetts dad, and learning to forgive those who have betrayed her, Kori was battling it all.But will she ever have the strength to forgive Reed?

Replay


Amy Daws - 2021
    Football club lawyer, Santino Rossi is known in the locker room as the two-month chump. For years he’s been on a mission to find someone he can share his basil plant with and cure him of his former playboy ways. Tilly Logan is a fiery, Scottish lass who didn’t bat an eye five years ago when a smoldering Italian pulled her into a nightclub bathroom. He was dark, dangerous, and exactly the good time Tilly was looking for—even if he worked for her over-protective brother’s team. But a lot has changed and when Tilly returns to London five years later only to find herself trapped in an elevator with the smoldering Italian, it isn’t a happy reunion. Especially because her brother blames Santino for her high tailing it back to Scotland in the first place. Tilly doesn’t want a replay of past mistakes and reconnecting with Santino is playing with fire.But if they keep their relationship a secret, it could be worth the burn.

Take Two


Laurelin Paige - 2014
    On the night of her graduation from film school, straight-laced Maddie Bauers fell completely out of character for an oh-my-god make-out session with a perfect stranger. Complete with the big O.Seven years later, that romantic interlude is still fresh in her mind. That stranger is now a rich and famous actor. And she’s one very distracted camera assistant working on his latest production. She might consider another tryst…if he even remembers her.Micah Preston does indeed remember Maddie. Too bad he’s sworn off Hollywood relationships. He allows himself as much sex as he likes—and oh, he does like—but anything more is asking for trouble. For the woman, not for him. Yet knowing Maddie could want more than a movie-set fling doesn’t stop him from pursuing her like a moth drawn to hot stage lights. But as the shoot nears its end, it’s decision time. Is it time to call, “Cut!” on their affair, or is there enough material for a sequel?Warning: Contains a dreamy movie star hero, a focus-pulling heroine, off-the-charts instant chemistry, steamy sex in near-public locations, and a new use for lip gloss.

No Tomorrow


Carian Cole - 2018
    They steal our breath.They steal our sanity.And we let them.Over and over and over again.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *They say you never forget your first love.Mine was a homeless musician who wandered straight into my soul.He was my first everything. And fourteen years later, I still can't get him out of my head.He broke all my rules.He also broke my heart.I watched him climb to stardom, cheering him on from afar.But I was never a fan; just a girl in love.Like a tornado, he spiraled, leaving a path of destruction in his wake.But love conquers all, right? It has to. Because here I stand, ravaged and ruined, needing it to be true.You can't go back, but I want to. Back to the park. Back to when he sang only for me. Before he was famous. Before he shattered my heart.I thought I knew everything about him.But I could not have been more wrong.He promised me every tomorrow. And here I am, waiting.And hoping.Again. _______________________ Note: This is not a fluffy, light read or a swoony romance. It's a journey of love between two people who can't let each other go, even though they are far from perfect. It's about loving someone who is struggling with mental illness and addiction and all the ups and downs that come with it. It's about finding a happily ever after that works between two people loving each other the best they can with patience, understanding, and unconditional love. Not everyone will agree with this kind of love and acceptance - but it exists, and it's real, and it happens every day.

Like a Memory


Abbi Glines - 2017
    One special summer. The one thing Bliss had lost herself in when the fear and sickness were too much, moments never to be damaged by the harsh reality that followed… until now. Bliss York didn’t live a normal teenage life. She didn’t go to Friday night football games, walk the halls with her friends every day, go to her prom or even walk to receive her diploma. It had all been taken from her the fall that she was fifteen years old and she was given the diagnosis no one ever wants to hear. She had leukemia. Seven years after spending a summer with a girl who he knew would always be his first love and the one who got away, Nate Finlay returns to Sea Breeze to help his fiancé open her new boutique clothing store. When the new employee walks in Nate is taken back seven years to the girl he thought he’d love forever. The one who never answered his calls or returned his text. The one who shut him out completely with not even a goodbye and broke his heart. They’ve each become someone different. No longer the young teens with stars in their eyes. But does that matter when your heart still says that’s the one.

My Enemy Next Door


Nicole London - 2018
    After the final rude message she wrote in my yearbook, I decided that we didn't need to see each other anymore. (But if we ever did, I would show her exactly why I had every reason to be "cocky," and make her admit that I really *was* "that damn sexy.")Now that it's ten years later, I've graduated from law school at the top of my class, and I'm being recruited to work at the number one law firm in New York City.Since I'm in desperate need of a change and want to meet new people, I don't hesitate to accept the offer.Until I find out that Courtney Ryan graduated from law school, too.Until I realize that she'll be working at the same exact firm, in the office right across from me.And if this timing isn't unfortunate enough, she's far more tempting and sexier than I originally remembered.(Oh, and last night I found out that she lives right next door...)We don't have to be close.We don't have to be best friends.But she's going to pay me back for making us enemies all over again...

The Choices I've Made


J.L. Berg - 2017
    I couldn't be me anymore. So, with nothing more than a few boxes and a beat up truck, I left behind my old life at the tender age of eighteen.And I never looked back. Twelve years later, I find myself traveling back to the sandy shores of that North Carolina town where my late father has left me his medical practice. Coming here means facing my past... My memories... And her--Molly McIntyre. Growing up, Molly had been my entire world, first as a childhood friend and then so much more. We'd made promises to each other back then. Promises I broke when I walked away. And now that I'm back? Well, let's just say she's not exactly the head of my welcoming committee. But even she can't deny the undeniable spark that still burns so brightly between us and soon, we're tumbling fast and hard into the past.But I need to keep my eyes set to the future, because mine isn't here in this dead end town. Not anymore. All Molly has ever known is here, on this small island. Could I really ask her to give it all up? For me? If I walk away again, will she follow?

See Through Heart


Amie Knight - 2016
     It wasn’t our quiet nights by the creek or stolen kisses surrounded by a sea of cotton that saved me. It was her. She was my comfort when life threw one ugly tragedy after another at me. Until she dealt me the greatest blow. Now, abandonment, betrayal, and death darken every corner of my life. Anger and hurt burn bright where love and trust once lived. But, now, she’s back. Sure, she’s changed, but I see through it—straight to her heart.

Cuffed


K. Bromberg - 2017
    Bromberg, comes a new standalone that proves true love will always stand the test of time. “I hate you. I never want to see you again.”Grant Malone is not the reason I moved back to Sunnyville—at least that’s what I tell myself. Yet, those parting words I said to him back in third grade, ring in my ears every time a townsperson brings up one of the Malone boys. I thought time had healed my wounds. I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for how I felt when I finally saw him again.Twenty years does a lot to turn a boy into a man. One who hits all my buttons—sexy, funny, attractive, and a police officer. But Grant is off limits because he knows too much about my past.But I’m drawn to him. That damn uniform of his doesn’t hurt either. It’ll be my downfall. I know it.What’s one night of sex going to hurt . . . right?***I’ve always loved Emmy Reeves.That’s why I’m shocked to see her all these years later. The shy girl I once knew is all grown up.Adventurous and full of life, she owns my heart now, just as much as she did back then. Convincing her of that is a whole different story.I’ll give her the one night she asks for—like that’s a hardship—but when it comes to letting her walk away after, she has another thing coming. There’s no way in hell I’m letting her go this time without a fight.

The Forbidden


Jodi Ellen Malpas - 2017
    Annie has never experienced the 'spark' with a guy-the kind of instant chemistry that steals your breath and blindsides you completely. Until a night out with friends brings her face to face with the wickedly sexy and mysterious Jack. It's not just a spark that ignites between them. It's an explosion. Jack promises to consume Annie, and he fully delivers on that promise.Overwhelmed by the intensity of their one night together, Annie slips out of their hotel room. She is certain that a man who's had such a powerful impact on her and who could bend her to his will so easily, must be dangerous. But she's already in too deep. And Jack isn't only dangerous. He is forbidden.

F*ck Marriage


Tarryn Fisher - 2019
    Shamed and divorced, Billie retreated to her family home in Port Townsend, far from her old life in New York. After a near-death encounter, Billie decides to return to the city that took everything from her. But sometimes in the midst of heartache, hope suffocates the pain. Satcher Gable has carried a torch for Billie for ten years. When she suddenly returns to New York a single woman, he can't believe his good fortune. But convincing her to walk away from her heartache is proving more difficult than Satcher anticipated. A changed woman, Billie's only goal is revenge.

Breaking Him


R.K. Lilley - 2015
    I gave it everything. And so when it failed, I lost myself.It changed me. He changed me.I went down with the ship.My soul, burnt embers in the aftermath. The fire of him ravaged it all.He burned me. Broke me.—Scarlett had always dreamed big. She was headed straight for Hollywood. Destined for silver screen greatness.But in her wildest dreams she never imagined she’d be broke and single at twenty-eight, doling drinks at thirty-five thousand feet.She was a glorified waitress in the skies.It had been years since she’d seen him.But one day, there he sat, gazing intently at her, ready to set everything ablaze once more.Dante wanted her. Again.Sure, she’d play along…but this time, it was his turn.She was breaking him.After all, love is war.