Carian Cole

When I was five years old I told Toren Grace I was going to marry him when I grew up. When I turned eighteen I made it clear I still felt the same. The problem? He's fifteen years older than me and he's my father's best friend. Toren Grace. My father's best friend. My pseudo-uncle. He's always been my rock. The one I should never, ever want. But I do want him, and I love him. I always have. He loves me too. Tor's one of the good guys. Loving. Devoted. A strong moral compass. One kiss between us rocked him clear off his axis. Now we can't forget how that kiss felt, and what it changed. Nothing will ever be the same between us. I know he's struggling with his feelings, but I'm determined. I'm not a little girl anymore, and we can't deny we were meant to be together. The heart wants what the heart wants, and it doesn't care about age or how we met. My father cares, though. And he's the one person neither one of us can stand to hurt. We're all being torn apart, and I don't know how to make everyone see that the wrongs are actually right. * Torn can be read as a single book.

Carian Cole delivers a sweet but sexy slow burn, age gap, marriage of convenience romance with major swoony feels! I guess you could say I was a damsel in distress, and he was my knight in shining armor. But more accurately, I was a girl with a lot of bad luck, and he was a guy with a lot of muscles and tattoos. Jude “Lucky” Lucketti wasn’t just a sexy, brooding construction worker. He was my own personal hero who seemed to be in all the right places at the right times. Like when my car broke down and I needed a ride home, and when I face planted on the sidewalk right in front of him and had to be taken to the emergency room. Those weren’t exactly my best moments, but they were his. We became friends, and it didn’t matter that he was sixteen years older than me. We had a lot in common—like our love of old rock music and vintage fast cars, and our painful pasts that made us leery of love and relationships. When he approached me with a crazy idea to help me out with my many problems, I couldn’t say no. He offered me a lifeline. The arrangement was supposed to be temporary. A marriage on paper and a safe place to live—nothing else. It should’ve been easy, but it wasn’t. Because here I am, eighteen years old and married to a man I was never supposed to fall in love with. And now, I really don't want that divorce we agreed to. We had just one rule—no kissing the bride. But we broke that rule, and it sealed our fate forever.

What if death doesn’t do you part? They say be careful what you wish for. But on December 5, Alex Fox makes a wish in the midst of a devastating tragedy. Little does he know that his wish will come true. Six years after that fateful day, a little girl wanders into Alex’s studio. With her quirky personality, endless questions, and adorable smile, Penny Rose becomes an enchanting yet bittersweet distraction. Penny Rose is an odd girl—at least, that’s what her parents say. Penny herself doesn’t feel particularly odd; she simply feels misplaced. As if somehow, in some way, she is living in the wrong place... in the wrong life. As the years pass, Alex and Penny develop a friendship. But it becomes harder and harder for them to ignore their undeniable chemistry, no matter how off limits it is. Alex believes he’ll never find love again, let alone fall for a girl half his age. But Penny is everything he could ever want or need. Not only is she caring, witty, and beautiful, but she accepts the past that haunts him. Penny couldn’t be happier. She’s been head over heels for sexy, brooding artist Alex Fox for as far back as she can remember. But when her childhood dreams and visions start resurfacing again—dreams of a life with Alex way before they ever met—she starts to think they’re not dreams at all. They’re memories. Penny’s revelation to Alex threatens to tear them apart, making them question the impossible and unbelievable. Can love truly transcend time and death, giving them a second chance at their happily ever after? Or is Penny battling a broken mind that has led her down a path of heartbreaking delusion?