Books like 'The Serpent King'

Readers who enjoyed The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

contemporary  romance  small town  realistic  coming-of-age  religion  friendship  high-school  family  grief 

  • The Last Piece of His Heart by Emma Scott

    The Last Piece of His Heart by Emma Scott

    Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars
    · 15 ratings
    At Santa Cruz Central High School, they called them the misfits, the outcasts, the weirdos. But most of us knew them as the Lost Boys... Ronan Wentz has been to hell and back, and he carries the scars to prove it. Worse, the blood of a monster runs through his veins. After ten years in foster care, eighteen-year-old Ronan is finally reunited with family...
  • Family Secrets at Hedgehog Hollow by Jessica Redland

    Family Secrets at Hedgehog Hollow by Jessica Redland

    Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Every family has its secrets, and at Hedgehog Hollow there is no exception...It was always Samantha's dream to run her beautiful rescue centre, Hedgehog Hollow, full-time. But just as her wish comes true, she becomes a victim of her own kindness when she finds herself with a house full of guests - all with their own problems and secrets - looking to her for support...
  • The Family Journal by Carolyn Brown

    The Family Journal by Carolyn Brown

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Join the millions who have fallen in love with New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown in her landmark hundredth novel. At the end of her rope, single mom Lily Anderson is determined to move her rebellious children in the right direction...
  • The Magic of Sea Glass by Jenny Hale

    The Magic of Sea Glass by Jenny Hale

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    After the loss of her fiancé a year ago, event planner Lauren Sutton can’t seem to go on with her choice of career or the life she’d built with her fiancé any longer...
  • Leo - A Preston Brothers Novel  : A More Than Series Spin-off by Jay McLean

    Leo - A Preston Brothers Novel : A More Than Series Spin-off by Jay McLean

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    One single summer changed them forever, and one moment of devastating silence destroyed it all.Growing up with six siblings, Leo Preston has always struggled to find his voice.While his brothers are loud, greedy, and somewhat obnoxious, Leo is forever the quiet one.The thinker.The listener.He watches his life pass by as an outsider in his own world, absent and alone.Lost. Until he finds her...
  • The Chocolate Shop on Amelia Island by Hope Holloway

    The Chocolate Shop on Amelia Island by Hope Holloway

    Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    The saga continues with secrets, surprises, and sweet temptations…Sadie Wingate has been keeping secrets...from her family and from her brand new husband. But once the truth is revealed, her whole world melts like a truffle in the sunshine...
  • My Kinda Forever by Lacey Black

    My Kinda Forever by Lacey Black

    Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Alone. Everything changed for Meghan Summer that fateful February night. All she had, all she saw in her future, was stripped away in the blink of an eye. Even though she finds herself surrounded by her growing family, at the end of the day, there’s nothing but a gaping hole where her heart once beat. Or so she thinks… Her. Nick Adams shouldn’t want her...
  • Fireflies & Family Ties by Rachel Hanna

    Fireflies & Family Ties by Rachel Hanna

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    When Meg shows up at her mother's door, she has no idea how to break the news to her. She's come home from France, pregnant. At just nineteen years old, this wasn't where she saw her life going.Now, trying to hide her growing belly and figure out her next decision, she moves in with her mother, sister and aunt on Seabreeze Island...
  • The Library by Bella Osborne

    The Library by Bella Osborne

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Two different generations. Two unusual people. Thrown together to save their local library.Tom is a teenager and blends into the background of life. After a row with his dad, and facing an unhappy future at the dog food factory, he escapes to the library. Tom unwittingly ends up with a bagful of romance novels and comes under the suspicion of Maggie...
  • A Thousand Boy Kisses by Tillie Cole

    A Thousand Boy Kisses by Tillie Cole

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 42 ratings
    One kiss lasts a moment. But a thousand kisses can last a lifetime. One boy. One girl. A bond that is forged in an instant and cherished for a decade. A bond that neither time nor distance can break. A bond that will last forever. Or so they believe...
  • Finding Acceptance by Christine Gael

    Finding Acceptance by Christine Gael

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Anna Sullivan has just found out that she has another sister…And the news is rocking her world. As she tries to come to grips with her mother’s infidelity and the knowledge that Pop wasn’t her biological father, she loses sight of the fact that there is another person in this equation. Her half-sister, Nikki, who didn’t ask for any of this either...
  • All That It Takes by Nicole Deese

    All That It Takes by Nicole Deese

    Rated: 4.83 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    When the ever-cautious Val Locklier finally agrees to a cross-country move with her nine-year-old son to take a job with her best friend, Molly, everything she had planned for the future unravels within the first week. After pushing aside her anxieties about renting an apartment from Molly's twin brother, whom she barely knows, she accepts an invitation for an elite filmmaker's mentorship...
  • That Summer: A Small Town, Friends-to-Lovers Romance by Jillian Dodd

    That Summer: A Small Town, Friends-to-Lovers Romance by Jillian Dodd

    Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Devaney Diamond’s summer break was shaping up to be the best one ever. Her longtime crush was finally interested in her, and by the time school rolled around in the fall, she knew he’d be her boyfriend...
  • Wilder Love by Emery Rose

    Wilder Love by Emery Rose

    Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    I was his weakness. He was my strength. Until I destroyed him. I was infatuated with Shane Wilder since the first time I saw him surfing. But we couldn’t be together. Not yet, anyway. I was too young and screwed up. He was too focused on chasing his dream. So we became friends. We met on the rooftop for late-night confessions under the stars...
  • Beard with Me by Penny Reid

    Beard with Me by Penny Reid

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    ‘Beard With Me’ is the origin story of Billy Winston and Scarlet St. Claire (aka Claire McClure) and is just the beginning of their epic love story. No one is better at surviving than Scarlet St. Claire and making the best out of circumstances beyond her control is Scarlet’s specialty...
  • Mason by Tijan

    Mason by Tijan

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Mason Kade is not known to be nice. He is ruthless, manipulative, and unforgiving. Most will say that he is a jerk and he is to those that cross him or cross his loved ones. However, he does not want to be who he is. He does not enjoy hurting others, but there is no limit to the lengths he will go to protect himself and his brother...
  • A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

    A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 49 ratings
    A high school rebel and a minister's daughter find strength in each other in this star-crossed tale of "young but everlasting love" (Chicago Sun-Times).There was a time when the world was sweeter....when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats...
  • The Pet Doctor by Tess Thompson

    The Pet Doctor by Tess Thompson

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    He’s a small-town veterinarian with a love for animals and naps. Haunted by a childhood trauma, she’s terrified of men. Can the truth about her past bring them closer together or tear them apart forever?Breck Stokes is back where he belongs. After years at university, he’s returned to Emerson Pass and taken over his mother’s veterinarian practice...
  • Chasing Harlow by Jay McLean

    Chasing Harlow by Jay McLean

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    What started as a bet can only end in heartache.Moving to the middle of nowhere right before my senior year wasn’t ideal.Then again, neither was my brother dying.The move was supposed to be a fresh start.A new town, a new school, a new mindset.Too bad my past indiscretions followed me.Enter Jace Rivera, the literal boy next door.Jace is loved by the town. Admired by his peers...
  • Kyland by Mia Sheridan

    Kyland by Mia Sheridan

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    Dirt poor. Hillbilly. Backwoods hick. Mountain folk. Tenleigh Falyn struggles each day to survive in a small, poverty-stricken, coal mining town where she lives with her sister and mentally ill mother. Her dream of winning the college scholarship given to one student by the local coal company and escaping the harshness of her life, keeps her going...
  • Finding Forgiveness: A Bluebird Bay Novel by Christine Gael

    Finding Forgiveness: A Bluebird Bay Novel by Christine Gael

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Sasha's secret is finally out...And Gabe isn't taking it well. With a baby on the way, they have to figure out how to make their marriage work, but after all the lies, the trust is gone. Can Gabe find it in his heart to forgive her, or will their brand new marriage crumble before it even gets off the ground?Meanwhile, the Sullivan sisters are trying to pick up the pieces after Pop's death...
  • My Kinda Song by Lacey Black

    My Kinda Song by Lacey Black

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Abby Summer has been in love with one man most of her life, but he doesn’t know she exists. For years, Abby has watched him go home with woman after woman, not even noticing the one who stands loyally beside him. That’s why a dating site is the perfect solution to Abby’s problems: get over Levi and move on to someone else...
    Categorized as:
    domestic-drama  family  friendship  multi-pov  sad  adult  angst  book
  • Her Perfect by Stephie Walls

    Her Perfect by Stephie Walls

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Everyone has secrets. Although, I was a master at concealing mine. But part of hiding was deception, and I’d become a veritable Pinocchio.  He was like two different people—Eli and Dr. Paxton. While I knew the latter would turn out to be an incredible teacher, the idea of Eli being more threw me for a loop...
  • The Fire by May Archer

    The Fire by May Archer

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    JAMIE Parker Hoffstraeder is gorgeous, cocky, and totally irrational. He also broke my heart when he left town eleven years, four months, and twenty-eight days ago. Not that I’m counting. I don’t mind admitting it: I was young. I got burned. I learned my lesson...
    Categorized as:
    drama  family  friendship  grief  lgbtq  multi-pov  sad  adult
  • Finding Forever by Christine Gael

    Finding Forever by Christine Gael

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Come spend some time with the Sullivan sisters and their families in Bluebird Bay...Max Burrows thought she'd finally found "the one". But when Tyler gets the opportunity of a lifetime and leaves Bluebird Bay for Paris, she can't bring herself to join him. She worked like a dog to make her own dream come true by opening the bookstore, and she won't give that up. Not for Tyler.Not for anyone...
  • June First by Jennifer Hartmann

    June First by Jennifer Hartmann

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 19 ratings
    Want to know what happens to a man who barely claws his way out of a tragedy, only to fall right into the arms of the one girl in the world he can never have?Another tragedy, that’s what.When I was six years old, my father made a choice that altered the course of my entire life. Because of what he did, the only girl I ever loved became the only girl I couldn’t have...
    Categorized as:
    coming-of-age  dark  drama  family  grief  multi-pov  sad  age-gap
  • Maintenance Required: A small town romance by Giulia Lagomarsino

    Maintenance Required: A small town romance by Giulia Lagomarsino

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    EricI live my life by a certain standard. There are right and wrong ways to do things, and I always make sure that I'm on the right side. My brothers call me a wet blanket. They say I'm buttoned-up, boring, and that I don't know how to let loose. There's a reason I'm that way, and she just walked through my door. With one wild night, I've thrown all my moral guidelines out the window...
    Categorized as:
    drama  family  grief  sad  adult  book  contemporary  fiction
  • Walk the Edge by Katie McGarry

    Walk the Edge by Katie McGarry

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    One moment of recklessness will change their worlds.Smart. Responsible. That's seventeen-year-old Breanna's role in her large family, and heaven forbid she put a toe out of line. Until one night of shockingly un-Breanna-like behavior puts her into a vicious cyber-bully's line of fire—and brings fellow senior Thomas "Razor" Turner into her life...
  • Goodbye Paradise by Nealy Wagner, Sarina Bowen

    Goodbye Paradise by Nealy Wagner, Sarina Bowen

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    Most people called it a cult. But for twenty years, Josh and Caleb called it home. In Paradise, there is no television. No fast food. Just long hours of farm work and prayer on a dusty Wyoming ranch, and nights in a crowded bunkhouse. The boys of the Compound are kept far from the sinners’ world. But Joshua doesn’t need temptation to sin. His whole life, he’s wanted his best friend, Caleb...
  • Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy C. Cherry

    Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy C. Cherry

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 31 ratings
    To Whom it May Concern, It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates. When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow...
  • The Key to the Last House Before the Sea by Liz Eeles

    The Key to the Last House Before the Sea by Liz Eeles

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Tears trickling down her cheeks, she recognises her grandmother’s writing scrawled across the manila envelope. Inside is an engraved key that sits heavy in her hand. Will the tumbledown cottage be the start of a new life – or will it tear her life apart?With her back to the sparkling sea, single mum Nessa stands in the doorway of the stone cottage her grandmother left behind...
  • Love to Hate You by Jessica Prince

    Love to Hate You by Jessica Prince

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    After her husband left her for her best friend, Hayden Young moved to Hope Valley looking for a fresh start for her and her daughter. The last thing she expected was to run into the man who had rocked her world in the middle of the wine section of the local grocery store...
  • Driftwood Bay by Irene Hannon

    Driftwood Bay by Irene Hannon

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    After tragedy upends her world, Jeannette Mason retreats to the tiny Oregon seaside town of Hope Harbor to create a new life. Vowing to avoid emotional attachments, she focuses on running her lavender farm and tea-room--until a new neighbor with a destructive dog and a forlorn little girl invades her turf. But she needn't worry. Dr...
    Categorized as:
    drama  family  friendship  grief  spirituality  adult  audiobook  book
  • Stay with Me by Becky Wade

    Stay with Me by Becky Wade

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    A mysterious letter alluding to a secret in her parents' past brings Genevieve Woodward back to her Blue Ridge Mountains hometown, but she's also in need of a break from a high-profile career that has left her dangerously burned out and concealing a powerful secret of her own...
  • 6 Times We Almost Kissed by Tess Sharpe

    6 Times We Almost Kissed by Tess Sharpe

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Six moments lead us to two girls, one kiss, and three little words that were maybe always true in this gorgeous novel perfect for fans of Nina LaCour and Jenny Han. Penny and Tate have always clashed. Unfortunately, their mothers are lifelong best friends, so the girls’ bickering has carried them through playdates, tragedy, and more than one rom-com marathon with the Moms...
  • We Are Family by Beth Moran

    We Are Family by Beth Moran

    Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Thirty-three-year-old Ruth Henderson and her daughter Maggie have some hard choices to make. Following the tragic death of Maggie’s father, they are left with a mountain of debt and broken hearts. So, despite her vow never to return home after the fall-out from her teenage pregnancy, Ruth can’t see any option other than for the two of them to move back in with her parents...
  • All My Life by Prescott Lane

    All My Life by Prescott Lane

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    "Prescott Lane breathes new life into single-dad romances with the young and devastatingly sexy Garrett." - USA Today The beginning of any love story starts with the meet. I’ve known Garrett Hollis since before I can remember, and I’ve loved him just as long. I loved him while he loved someone else. I loved him when he had a baby with her. I loved him when she left him...
  • Blue Wide Sky by Inglath Cooper

    Blue Wide Sky by Inglath Cooper

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    First love. . . forever love. Sixteen-year old Gabby Hayden wasn’t the kind of girl who gave a hoot about boys. She had a few real loves. Water-skiing, going out on Smith Mountain Lake with her dad and her dog. Anything else ranked a distant second. Until the summer she met smart, caring, gorgeous Sam Tatum and gave him her heart...
  • Second Chances at the Cotswolds Candy Store by Hannah M. Lynn

    Second Chances at the Cotswolds Candy Store by Hannah M. Lynn

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Holly Berry has it a good career, a steady boyfriend, and enough savings that the two of them will soon be able to buy a nice little house. But when she finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her, she decides to retreat to the Cotswolds and a place full of far sweeter memories. Quite literally...
  • קוראת את חיי by Renee Carlino

    קוראת את חיי by Renee Carlino

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 29 ratings
    When a bestselling debut novel from mysterious author J.Colby becomes the literary event of the year, Emiline reads it reluctantly. As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer...
  • Heartache and Hope by Jay McLean

    Heartache and Hope by Jay McLean

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Ava Diaz needs saving.She just doesn’t know it yet.Just like she doesn’t know a thing about the boy she sits next to on the first day of senior year.He thinks she’s a brat.She thinks he’s entitled.Maybe first impressions don’t always last… Because Connor Ledger’s about to save her.He just doesn’t know why...
    Categorized as:
    coming-of-age  dark  drama  family  grief  high-school  multi-pov  sad
  • What I Carry by Jennifer Longo, Reba Buhr

    What I Carry by Jennifer Longo, Reba Buhr

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Muiriel is close to aging out of foster care, where she has kept her freedom intact nearly all her life by carrying with her only the things she needs through twenty placements, and always moving, never staying still long enough to be caught in the trap of adoption...
  • Inheritance of Secrets by Robin Patchen

    Inheritance of Secrets by Robin Patchen

    Rated: 4.70 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    From a USA Today bestselling author comes the latest in an edge-of-your-seat Christian romantic suspense series that will keep you reading all night long."I didn't do right by your mother. Find her and do what I never had the courage to do.”Her father’s deathbed confession changed everything for Aspen Kincaid. The mystery of her mother’s disappearance was unsolvable, or so she’d believed...
  • The Girl in the Love Song by Emma Scott

    The Girl in the Love Song by Emma Scott

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    At Santa Cruz Central High School, they called them the misfits, the outcasts, the weirdos. But most of us knew them as the Lost Boys...Miller Stratton is a survivor. After a harrowing childhood of poverty, he will do anything it takes to find security for himself and his mom...
  • The Mason List by S.D. Hendrickson

    The Mason List by S.D. Hendrickson

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    An epic love. An epic hate. An epic story that would last a lifetime. Today, 8:15 p.m. I hurt. I hurt so deeply, I felt the pain searing in my bones and jabbing like a hot poker into my heart. I knew nothing would make it better as the memories pulled from the crevices of my mind, detailing the bad and the ugly, filling my thoughts with regret as I slipped into the darkness. .
  • The Truth Between Us by Tammy L. Gray

    The Truth Between Us by Tammy L. Gray

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Nine years to win her. Three years to love her. And one decision that destroyed it all. April Duncan was raised with three clear truths: the family name is absolute, ambition and success rule over every emotion, and love always comes with strings attached. Image was everything in her carefully crafted world... until the mirror cracked...
  • Branded by a Song by L.J. Evans

    Branded by a Song by L.J. Evans

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    From award-winning author LJ Evans comes an achingly tender, standalone romance between a country-rock legend searching for more and a solemn, single-mom determined to honor her lost husband… “We would be art. We would be paint and chords blended together.” Brady O’Neil tells the world he’s returning to upstate New York to help his sister...
    Categorized as:
    family  multi-pov  religion  sad  spirituality  adult  book  children
  • The Holiday Reunion by Sage Parker

    The Holiday Reunion by Sage Parker

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    She wasn't expecting to spend the holidays heartbroken and alone. But thanks to her soon-to-be ex-husband, everything she once had is now gone.At 46 years old, all Matilda has is a backpack and a one-way ticket to her estranged cousins' cabin in Washington. Adapting to the small-town lifestyle, Matilda makes a room in the attic, where she discovers a hidden box of odds and ends...
  • Girls Who Pray by Evelyn Dar

    Girls Who Pray by Evelyn Dar

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    New York Times bestselling author Claire Roberts is being sued by the Amish. Yep, those Amish. Claire’s latest release, a tell-all memoir about growing up Amish, reveals startling truths and intimate details about a passionate, secret love affair between herself and another woman...
  • Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

    Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

    Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Moxie girls fight back!Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with her small-town Texas high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes and hallway harassment. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules...
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