Bitter Sweet Heart

Annaliese Harper knows that one tiny mistake can jeopardize a career before it's even begun. Letting your boss find the extensive collection of porn on your personal laptop is one way. Sleeping with him is another. Liese manages to do both. As the new librarian at a prestigious small-town private high school, Liese is drawn to her sexy, charismatic principal, Ryder Whitehall - an attraction she refuses to acknowledge given their relationship and her recent liberation from a delusional ex-boyfriend.

When Dillion Stitch left her hometown, she had no intention of going back. But when her brother gets into trouble, Dillion reluctantly agrees to return home to take her place at the family business. Being back in Pearl Lake after all these years feels familiar but also brings a few surprises. She’s quick to notice that someone new has shown up at the cottage next door. Dillion gets more than an eyeful when she goes to check out the newcomer and meets Donovan “Van” Firestone - her beloved neighbor’s grandson - in all his unclothed glory.

River Tate is a god on campus. The king of football. A tattooed bad boy with gunmetal eyes that see right through you. The only chink in his armor is HER, the girl he pretends doesn't exist, the forbidden one with the shy smile and lavender hair. Anastasia Bailey is a nobody.

Full disclosure: Before we move forward with this email, I would like it to be known that I have consumed an adequate amount of alcoholic beverages to intoxicate myself tonight. Three margaritas, two shots, and one beer - because it was free. I think it's important to be open and honest with your coworkers, don't you? So here I am, being open and honest. Drunk but honest. Or just drunk with lust? You decide. I have a hopeless, foolish, schoolgirl crush on you when you are the last person on earth I should be falling for. Did you know people around the office call you a sadist?

How did I go from being insulted by Charlee Cox to hiring her to be my assistant? How is it that she’s chaos in color - making me crazy and my life better at the same time? I never thought I would be staring down at her bright blue eyes begging me to go along with the ridiculous scheme I suggested. Yes, I suggested it. Like the idiot I am, I thought hey, why not start an HR nightmare and have my assistant ask me to marry her? Confused? Don’t worry, so am I. 

"She went home with someone else that night?" I would like to make it known, I have a lot more swagger than what it seems. I don't normally ask a girl out, have her fail to recognize it's a date, and then give me a high five - as if I'm her wingman - and take off with someone else. No. Normally I'm the one taking the girl home, but with Stella, it's been one failed attempt after another and frankly, I'm done trying. But thanks to my best friend getting married in Hawaii right before the school year starts, I'm stuck on a tropical island.

I have two responsibilities as the new heir to the throne: Get married and ave babies. Sure, becoming queen one day is part of those new responsibilities, but as long as King Theo is in charge, I don't have to add a coronation to my list.

The first time I met Winter Marks, I almost took her out with my Jeep. To be fair, she came out of nowhere. I flirted with her, and she flipped me off and disappeared into the woods on her bike. But she left me a souvenir: a single hockey skate. Seemed to me that divine intervention shouldn’t be ignored. She was my icy Cinderella, and I would be her Prince Not-So-Charming. Winter was more than just a sassy, badass hockey-playing hottie. She’s stuck in a prison of a life. And I’m the perfect escape. Neither of us expected to fall. Or for the truth to shatter us.

Nate Stiles is the definition of serious. Furrowed brow? Check. Rain cloud personality? Double check. I shouldn’t be thinking about the fact that our kiss was the best one of my life right now. I should be planning the bachelorette party of the millennium. I shouldn’t be wondering when Nate became such a good dancer after we got roped into salsa lessons with the happy couple. I should be mentally ticking off boxes on my bridal checklists. I shouldn’t be wondering what it would be like if I didn’t hate Nate Stiles. I should be holding strong against a man who doesn’t believe in love.

Luna Rossi is a veritable crafting genius — she can bedazzle and bead so hard her Etsy site is one of the hottest in the world. So it’s only natural that Luna would convince her brother and his husband-to-be to compete on The Wedding Game, a “do-it-yourself” TV show, for the title of Top DIY Wedding Expert.

It was supposed to be an innocent night, celebrating my brother’s birthday. Nothing was supposed to go wrong. We’d vowed to be on our best behavior after all.... But it only took one rowdy night with my brothers to flip my world upside down. One unlucky encounter saddled us with a family curse and the promise of doomed relationships. I laughed it off immediately. “Yeah, right,” I thought. “A love curse. Ha!” Boy, was I wrong.

Goodness, I have no idea what I'm doing. I’m a virgin attempting to write a romance novel and I'm having an impossible time trying to write a passionate and swoon-worthy love scene worthy of being published, thanks to my lack of experience...This is the story of my awkward, humiliating, and slightly terrifying life, but like all romance novels, I know it will end in a happily ever after. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Oldest story in the book: boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy screws up massively, girl tells boy to suffocate in the fruits of his very own unborn children. Heard it before? I'm sure you have. So what's so different about this story? Well, it's about me, The Modern Gentleman, New York City's top advice columnist, and my rather ungraceful downfall from my pristinely polished pedestal. It's about a girl I met who threw all my proven theories to the wind and left me awkward, needy, and absolutely head-over-wing-tipped shoes in love.

I don’t want you. You mean nothing to me. I never loved you. I turned my words into swords. And I cut her down. Shoved the blade in and watched her fall. I said I’d never hurt her and I did. Years later I’m faced with all the little lies, the untruths, the false realities, the damage I inflicted when all I wanted was to indulge in my obsession. Lavender Waters is the princess in the tower. Even her name is the thing fairy tales are made of. I used to be the one who saved her. Over and over again.

With a famous NHL player for a stepbrother, Violet Hall is well acquainted with the playboy reputation of many a hockey star. So of course she isn't interested in legendary team captain Alex Waters or his pretty, beat-up face and rock-hard six-pack abs. But when Alex inadvertently obliterates Violet's misapprehension regarding the inferior intellect of hockey players, he becomes much more than just a hot body with the face to match.