Recommendations based on "Was I Ever Here"

From the USA Today bestselling author of Fisher's Light comes a "heartbreaking and hopeful" (AL Jackson) standalone romance about first love and second chances. How much can a man take before he breaks? 1,843 days. That's how long I survived in that hellhole. They tried to break me, but I resisted. And I owe it all to the memory of warm summer nights, the scent of peaches, and the one woman who loved me more than I ever deserved to be loved. Now, I'll do anything to get back to her. Only Shelby Eubanks isn't the girl I left behind all those years ago. She's someone else, a stranger. My Shelby-my little green-eyed firecracker-would never give up her dreams, would never disappear into her mother's ambitions. But I won't give up on her. On us. I may be broken, and scarred, and not the man I used to be, but I will do whatever it takes to remind her of the story of us.

What if a “Once in a Lifetime” could happen twice?In Dahlia London’s world, happily ever after is a far cry from reality. Her soul has been left completely shattered by tragedy. But a surprising reunion with someone from her past is about to give her a reason to love again…When rock star River Wilde comes back into Dahlia’s life, their super-charged connection runs deeper than either of them ever expected. The more time they spend together, the more intense their relationship becomes, and Dahlia believes at last she has found her soul mate.But as old bonds fade and Dahlia’s grief begins to lift, her guilt and confusion remain. River desperately wants to be the one who mends what’s been broken—but with a past that refuses to stay buried, is it possible for their future to begin?

Sometimes, love just isn't enough. I found my soulmate in my mid-twenties, but life didn't turn out as we hoped. His love wasn't strong enough to ride every wave. I have to find myself a new future, somehow.Here I am in my mid-forties, alone and at a crossroads about what kind of woman I want to be. It feels as though every turn I take, I hit a roadblock. Nothing ends how it's meant to.In recent years, I've lost my sister, my best friend, my home, my confidence. I lost me.I've dealt with grief and loss in insurmountable measures.Things take a drastic change when someone I despise starts to look appealing―a man I hate. My heart is a traitor to my mind as unexpected feelings build out of nowhere. He's a known playboy. A man who earned the world and never settled down. This man, now, has his sights set on me. It's never wise to try to tame the womaniser. Will this not just lead to more heartache for me?Can you really rebuild your future midway through life? I don't know.Trigger warning: contains adult themes including infertility, grief, and loss.

Twelve years ago, forensic anthropologist Jamie Cash survived a brutal kidnapping, torture, and rape. After years of therapy, she has made a life for herself--though one that is haunted by memories of her terrifying past. She finally lets herself get close to a man, FBI agent Dakota Richards, when signs start appearing that point to one frightening fact--her attacker is back and ready to finish the job he started all those year ago. Can she escape his grasp a second time? And will she ever be able to let down her guard enough to find true love?Filled with heart-stopping suspense, gritty realism, and a touch of romance, Don't Look Back is the second book in the WOMEN OF JUSTICE series. Readers will be hooked from the beginning, finding that once you are in Lynette Eason's world, you're trapped until you turn the very last page.

It’s been a year since Ivy’s boyfriend, Tristan, died. They’ve both moved on—Tristan to the other side of the afterlife, and Ivy to sweet, dependable Will. Now Ivy’s heading to Cape Cod, hoping to leave the horror of last summer behind. She wants nothing more than to lie on the beach, sip lemonade, and hang out with her friends. But then a car crash ends Ivy’s life. As she floats to the beyond, looking down on the life she’s left behind, Tristan breathes life back into her with a passionate kiss. She wakes up in the hospital, surrounded by Will and her family, but all she can think about is the love that she lost. But memories aren’t all that’s come back from the past. And this time, Ivy’s not sure love will be enough to save her.

3 weeks. 5 cities. 15 impossible stunts. One reality show. Trevor Cross came into Reya Cabrera's world with a bang and faded out with a whimper. They vowed to make it work, but life had other plans. After chasing his TV dreams for years, Trev finally became the UK's next big reality star, but he alienated his family and friends in the process. Now he finally has everything he ever wanted. Women. Money. Fame. But none of it means anything when he doesn't have the one thing that matters most: love. Money leaves a gaping hole. Fame surrounds him with loneliness. And no woman makes him feel like Reya used to before the whirlwind of success pulled them apart. He has a plan to get her back. However, with a hectic filming schedule looming, the only way to do that is to convince her to come on the road with him. Reya has been stuck in a rut for a while, and the opportunity to travel across Europe and play her music for new audiences seems like heaven. The only catch? She has to do it with the one boy who ever got close enough to break her heart. But he's not a boy anymore, and as she gets to know him again she can't deny her respect for the man he's become. Every time she's around him her heart feels full of air, like a balloon about to pop. Little does she know, Trev's feelings are just as tumultuous as hers. One thing's for sure, these three weeks on the road together will either make them whole again or break them irrevocably.**Hearts on Air is a contemporary romance and book #6 in the Hearts series, however it can also be read as a complete standalone.**

Sometimes hope for the future is found in the ashes of yesterday. EVEN NOW A young woman seeking answers to her heart's deepest questions. A man and woman driven apart by lies and years of separation...who have never forgotten each other. With hallmark tenderness and power, Karen Kingsbury weaves a tapestry of lives, losses, love, and faith-and the miracle of resurrection. EVER AFTER 2007 Christian Book of the Year Two couples torn apart - one by war between countries, and one by a war within. In this moving sequel to Even Now, Emily Anderson, now twenty, meets the man who changes everything for her: Army reservist Justin Baker. Their tender relationship, founded on a mutual faith in God and nurtured by their trust and love for each other, proves to be a shining inspiration to everyone they know, especially Emily's reunited birth parents. But Lauren and Shane still struggle to move past their opposing beliefs about war, politics, and faith. When tragedy strikes, can they set aside their opposing views so that love-God's love-might win, no matter how great the odds?

The next book in the New Haven series, interconnected standalones featuring second chances, fiery passion, and Black heroines who get their happily ever afters. This is part three of a trilogy. Mallory Hope is a dangerous thing. It holds you close like a lover, whispering promises it never intends to keep, and just as soon as you relax into its arms, it lets you go. Sending you spinning into an abyss of nothingness. When I sent him away four years ago, he promised he would come back to me, and even as I asked him not to, I hoped that he would. Hope. I tucked it deep inside of me, underneath the scars of our before, beside the dreams of our after. Hidden like contraband. Guarded like a treasure. Broken like every promise that ever fell from his lips and hit my ears. Eventually, I got tired of hoping, of waiting for him, and I plunged my hands inside my own heart, ripping past scar tissue and muscle, veins and arteries to root it out. Hope. He conspired with it to make a fool of me, and when I freed myself from it, exorcised that pointless dream, I promised myself that no one would get the chance to do that to me again. Then, and only then, did he appear. My promise, a spell that conjured him. My determination, a challenge. My heart, the only prize he hopes to win. Christopher Life without Mallory Kent has taught me that time doesn't heal wounds. It turns them into scars. Jagged tissue that grows around your pain, covering it with raised skin that will never again be smooth to the touch. My first scar formed when I was just a child. Too young to fully understand what my mother's loss would mean for my life but old enough to remember the echo of the pain inside my empty chest. It was a unique agony. One I never expected to feel again. But that was before I loved her. Before I let things that had nothing to do with us cost me everything. It's been four years since I decided to honor her request to stay away. To move on with my life and give her a chance to move on with hers. And she might not agree, but it was more than enough time for us to try and do the impossible. The only thing our time apart has done is remind me that wherever she is, is where I'm supposed to be. Now I just have to make her believe it.

I used to think everything was black and white, truth or lie, easy or hard, that if I could just escape my strict, overbearing, abusive father, my life would be perfect. But since I've found a reason to risk his wrath and leave, to help a friend in need, I've come to realize everything I thought I knew is wrong. Friends have their own agenda, honesty comes with a dosage of lie, easy doesn't even exist, keeping secrets sucks, and love--love is the most painful thing of all. Maybe if Quinn Hamilton hadn't asked me to skip classes for the day and help him pick out an engagement ring for my best friend, I wouldn't have fallen for him so completely on that sunny Tuesday afternoon and I wouldn't feel so conflicted. But I did, and I can't take it back, no matter how hard I try. So I have to deal with the fact that even I'm not as good, or honest, or caring as I'd always thought I was, and no matter what I do next, someone's going to get hurt. Probably me--Zoey Blakeland

Gracie had it all. Her band had just booked a national tour, she was finally off the waitlist for her dream dog, and her girlfriend had popped the question. The stars had finally aligned-until they didn't. After a horrific accident, Gracie loses the last five years of her life, including her band, her dog, and her fiancée. When her girlfriend wakes up from the accident asking for her college boyfriend, Ashley's grand power-couple plans are put on hold. Confronted with a version of Gracie she had never known, Ashley is left with one question: When your memory is lost, can the heart still remember?