Slow Burn

**1ST SERIES OF THE "WOLF PACK" BOOK SAGA BY SHANA E.** > *"The origins story on how it all began…"* Once Blue Moon princesses. ***Now?*** **Captured. Sold. Bought.** That's their new reality after the hive rips apart their pack, killing most, enslaving others and imprisoning their parents. *What happens when two omegas, purchased to be servant girls, become mates to the very hive masters who now own them?* Two cousins. Two fated bonds. Follow the story of Sienna and Anne Marie Rightfield. While one is fated to the region’s formidable Beta Prince, Marcus Walker, the other finds herself bound to the most powerful man in the hive: Dr. Patrick Greyson, the Wolf King himself. In a twisted game of love and power they use and abuse their submissiveness to satisfy their own lustful desires. Yet genuine feelings have emerged over the years, which threatens to upend their secret lives. In a forbidden *"Alpha-Beta-Omega"* affair, their unlawful love becomes impossible to ignore by the council of wolves. Spanning 8-episodic installments (*11-chapters each*), this *on-going* erotic saga delivers a slow-burn romance that ignites into a wildfire, lethal power struggles, and a concealed magical realm that takes a heavy toll on the Rightfield girls. If you crave pack dynamics, forced proximity, and strong female leads, this series is your new addiction. Dive into a forbidden, provocative journey. - **Genre:** Adult Paranormal Shifter Romance (Erotic) - **Format:** Episodic Series (Bite-sized high heat) - **Themes:** Age Gap, Enemies to Lovers, Fated Mates, Possessive Alpha, Loyal Beta. - **Creatures:** Werewolves, Vampires, Witches. - **Vibe:** Steamy, fast-paced, high spice werewolf novel with bite.   **Steamy. Brutal. Unforgettable** **(*An erotic werewolf novel with bite*)**

Rebecca “Becks” Morgan knows engines better than people. Her garage is her sanctuary, a place where she can keep her son safe and her past buried under layers of steel and grease. But when a sleek black sedan rolls in with a hidden compartment and a warning from a man who smells like trouble, her quiet life shatters. The car isn’t just a job. It’s a loaded weapon in a criminal empire, and now Becks is in the crosshairs.\ \ Detective Declan Stone has spent two years chasing a syndicate that always stays one step ahead. His latest lead? A beautiful mechanic who might be the key to unraveling it all. But Becks isn’t just a witness, she’s stubborn, sharp, and far too tempting for a man who swore he’d never mix business with desire. As danger closes in, Declan will risk everything to protect her and the boy she’d die for. Even if it means crossing every line he’s lived by. In a world where trust is a gamble and love is the ultimate risk, can they survive long enough to find both?

Love Poems to Joshua Coe is a raw, unfiltered collection of passion, heartbreak, devotion, and desire. These poems were written from a place of deep love — the kind that shakes your soul, pulls you in like a magnet, and refuses to let go. Inside these pages, Carol L. Bridges opens her heart completely. She writes about longing that aches, love that heals and destroys, desire that burns hot, and the emotional storms that come with loving someone so intensely it changes who you are. Moving from soft devotion to fiery passion, through heartbreak and into the quiet strength that comes after, this collection captures the painful beauty of loving someone with your whole heart — and learning that love should never destroy you. Every poem is personal. Every line is honest. Every page is a piece of a love story that is unforgettable. If you've ever loved deeply, wanted fiercely, broken silently, or felt your heart pulled toward someone you could never resist — these poems will speak to you. This is love in its truest form: tender, messy, passionate, overwhelming, and real. For mature readers 18+. Contains adult content and themes of toxic love and emotional abuse.

Humanity has surrendered more than its freedom. It has surrendered its identity. In a fractured, war-ravaged world controlled by an authoritarian regime, every transaction is tracked, every movement monitored, and every act of defiance punished. Digital currency has replaced cash, surveillance drones dominate the skies, and the Watchers' neural networks turn technology into an instrument of absolute control. But resistance is stirring. Twenty-two-year-old **Ryder Blackwood** has spent years preparing to fight back. Haunted by the disappearance of his father and sister and the loss of his mother, he refuses to accept a world where obedience is the price of survival. When he encounters **Anya Volkov,** a brilliant former broadcast engineer hiding behind the identity of a chemistry teacher, he discovers an opportunity to ignite something far greater than a local uprising. Together with a growing circle of hardened fighters, including **Mara Voss** and **Cage Rennic, Ryder** begins dismantling the Regime's surveillance infrastructure. Their rebellion spreads, alliances are forged, and the fight escalates into a devastating conflict against **President Thorne's** forces and their ruthless cybernetic architect, Preston Kane. Yet the greatest threat is not the regime itself. A sinister artificial intelligence known as the Fractal begins revealing its true nature, manipulating human minds, controlling biomechanical armies, and unleashing horrors that threaten humanity beyond Earth's boundaries. As the conflict expands from devastated cities to the oceans, lunar territory, and the depths of space, Mara becomes central to a battle that could determine the fate of civilization. With the Regime collapsing and humanity fighting for its future, Ryder and his allies must confront an enemy that refuses to die. Freedom has been won at an unimaginable cost. But victory is not the end. **The uprising has begun. The stars are watching. And the final cleansing is yet to come.**

When kingdoms whisper of darkness, they speak her name. Seraphina was never meant for a crown, but fate has bound her to a power both intoxicating and dangerous. Hunted by those who fear her and coveted by those who would use her, she must walk a razor’s edge between protector and destroyer. In a realm where betrayal hides behind every oath and loyalty is never certain, Seraphina must uncover secrets that could shatter empires. Allies wear masks, enemies draw close, and even her own reflection hides truths she dreads to face. To claim her future, she must embrace the shadow within—because only the Shadow Queen can decide whether the realm is saved… or consumed.

“He was her brother's best friend. That was the only rule. He broke it the night he stopped pretending he didn't want her.”

Simina, a poor girl in the small village of Lazera on the planet Zormonia, loves to read books. The stories in them take her to far distant lands and allow her to imagine herself in a different world, a different life. Her favorite things to read are fairy tales and romance novels. One day, she discovers an intriguing new book, titled The Dark Prince of Lazera. It tells of an evil, dark prince who possesses dark magic. She does not believe he is real, though the book says otherwise. That is, until one fateful encounter...       Certain events cause Simina's life to change in unexpected ways as the mysteries of The Dark Prince begin to unravel...

When Autumn encounters the enigmatic and devastatingly handsome Tristan Jordan in downtown Chicago, she quickly realizes he's no ordinary man—he’s a vampire, and he knows who she is. What begins as a chance meeting spirals into an intense and magnetic connection that neither of them can ignore. Autumn soon learns she’s been under surveillance by the vampire world due to her unique bloodline, which may carry untapped magical power. As she and Tristan grow closer, their bond deepens—literally. Through Tristan’s bite, their souls become psychically linked, giving them the ability to communicate without words and feel each other's emotions. But love doesn’t come without shadows. Tristan harbors secrets of his own: a dark past, a chaotic younger brother named Jaiden with dangerous ambitions, and a vampire world divided by ideology. As Autumn moves into a new house with her best friend Jade and begins a new college semester, her life shifts from ordinary to surreal. Vampire politics, ancient bloodlines, and supernatural threats swirl around her. Soon, she’s being stalked by Jaiden, who is obsessed with making her his vampire bride—or worse. As her mystical ancestry begins to awaken, Autumn is drawn into a deeper war: between light and dark, power and purpose, legacy and love. She must learn to control her gifts, guard her heart, and survive the pull of ancient forces that seek to claim her. In the final chapters, Autumn embraces her destiny—not just as Tristan’s beloved, but as a powerful force in her own right. She faces the Hollow, confronts her shadow self, and finds the strength to forgive, love, and transform.

**Even the kindest heart can fall into darkness.** On a distant world, Sithra is a gifted sorceress and healer whose greatest struggle is not with magic, but with loneliness. She has devoted her life to helping others, yet beneath her compassion lies a longing for acceptance, purpose, and belonging. Everything changes when she comes into possession of a mysterious shard—an ancient fragment containing the remnants of a fallen evil god. At first, its influence is subtle. A whisper of reassurance. A promise of strength. The suggestion that perhaps the world has treated her unfairly, and that she deserves something more. But the shard's gifts come at a terrible price. As its dark influence grows, Sithra's insecurities become resentments, her fears become suspicions, and her desire to protect others slowly twists into something far more dangerous. When her path crosses that of the Guardians, an interstellar order devoted to defending the innocent, the consequences of her transformation threaten to reach far beyond her own world. *Shardfall* is a tale of temptation, loneliness, and the tragedy of a good soul gradually surrendering to darkness. In a universe of extraordinary heroes and ancient evils, sometimes the most devastating battle is the one fought within.

It is 4:40 a.m. on a Tuesday in September when Marianne Sauer packs twelve sandwiches and tells her son to watch the header. By afternoon the header is still running and the boy is not. What follows is not a breakdown. It is a sequence. An engineering report. A denial letter that is true in every sentence. A co-op notice. A town hall where the water for a substation costs forty-one thousand dollars and a farm family’s useful life is treated as a line item. A cousin who takes a job with the company that needs the ground. A court order to move a burial. A settlement statement with a transfer fee tidier than grief. Emmett Sauer does what he has always done. He finishes the chop. He milks. He runs the numbers. He answers the phone trees. He sells the animals. He keeps the horse too long. He leaves the television on so the house has a voice in it. And in the months the closing papers give him alone with the doors shut, he does the last job a man like him knows how to do: he builds. Inspired by the true shadow of Colorado’s “Killdozer,” CHOP is something colder and closer to home — a Wisconsin dairy novel about how institutions harvest a life, and what happens when the only language left is horsepower. For readers of rural noir and literary crime who can sit with silence, process, and a night that does not look away.

Exiled and left to die on a hostile alien planet for a crime she didnt commit, alita is saved by a alien native who wants nothing to do with her... Or so he thought. \ `Xanadis...A world deemed uninhabitable by humans and made into a penal colony where deathrow convicts are sent to serve out the rest of their lives, forced to fight to survive or subcome to the harsh enviroment and fall prey to the many creatures that live there. `\ \ `After being convicted of a murder she didnt commit alita is left stranded on the hostile world filled with carnivorous plants, ruthless criminals, hostile natives, and bloodthirsty monsters. `\ \ `She comes to realize the world isnt as unforgiving and cold as it seems. She's saved by a native who dislikes humans as much as the next guy but shes intent on sticking by his side in order to survive. The only issue being is the last thing he wants is a pathetic, weak human girl following him around.`\ \ \ \ \ `(Limited time only read!) `\ \ \ ` (THIS IS THE RE-WRITTEN VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL STORY AND WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE TEMPORARILY)`

After crash landing on an unknown alien planet a female Xenobiologist finds herself in the company of two strange aliens after they kidnap her in the middle of the night from her ship and crew. luckily the two aliens have yet to show any signs of hostility but when their exploratory touch starts to become more intimate she finds her own sexual urges hard to resist. and being a scientist at heart, how could she deny a chance to learn the anatomy of a new alien species in the most pleasurable way possible?

Mara Klein started "Where Evil Lurks" as a true-crime blog — just a freelancer chasing the stories no one else would touch. Then the comments started coming: shipwrecks, disappearances, sudden storms, and always the same detail — a man in a red plaid shirt, just out of focus, at the edge of every disaster. From a doomed 1849 merchant brig to a cursed Cuban schooner, from forgotten plantations to coal-mining towns, Mara follows a century-long trail of bargains, hauntings, and things that should not be. Each case file pulls her deeper — and the man in plaid is always one step ahead, waiting, patient, smiling. Where Evil Lurks: The Man in Plaid is a supernatural thriller told through blog entries, recovered journals, and Mara's own investigation — the story of a woman who stepped into the shadows and refused to look away.

Set against the polished backdrops of San Francisco, Carmel, Napa Valley, and Paris, *Bound to Both* is a sophisticated LGBTQ+ romantic drama and comedy that explores the quiet dissolution of a long-term marriage and the unexpected awakening of a second chance at happiness. Forty-two-year-old Jonathan Stern has built his life around routine, financial security, and the increasingly cold silence of his marriage to Elliott, a celebrity chef whose restaurant empire and Napa expansion have consumed his entire existence.When Jonathan's friend Michael introduces Martin—a broke, sharp-tongued French-Canadian artist with zero filter and a lifelong dream of seeing Paris—he is reluctantly pulled into Jonathan's spare bedroom as a temporary houseguest. What starts as an awkward living arrangement slowly thaws during a chaotic trip to Carmel and an unforgettable, dream-fulfilling week in Paris, where Jonathan watches Martin experience the world with a raw, joyful authenticity that he hasn't felt in a decade. But as Jonathan's feelings for Martin deepen, the boundaries of his marriage are pushed to a breaking point—culminating in a disastrous misunderstanding, an explosive confrontation, and a sudden UCSF hospital call revealing that Elliott is battling multiple myeloma. In the wake of a life-threatening diagnosis, long-hidden secrets about Elliott's infidelity come to light, forcing Jonathan to confront the reality of his past. Bound together by an unexpected and extraordinary medical sacrifice—and a frantic,classic rom-com dash through San Francisco International Airport—*Bound to Both* is a witty, emotionally grounded story about letting go of what has already faded and finally choosing a life on your own terms.

*"What happens when a fifteen-year-old dishwasher discovers that professional kitchens and hard liquor both offer the same thing? An escape from the noise inside his head."*\ \ For Donald N. Walker, the answer is a thirty-five-year journey through some of America's finest kitchens and darkest corners—a story of extraordinary culinary achievement built on a foundation that was crumbling from the very first drink. At thirteen, Walker blacked out for the first time.\ At forty-eight, standing in a parking lot in Victor, Idaho, with everything he owned in a borrowed pickup truck, he'd been fired, laid off, or escorted out of more kitchens than he could count without a piece of paper. He had five DUI arrests across three states. He had slept in a homeless shelter while employed at one of the most exclusive resorts in the American West. And he was about to do the single best thing he would ever do. This is the instruction manual on how not to do it—and the hard-won wisdom of a man who finally learned to put down the shovel. **How NOT to Do It** weaves three powerful narratives into a singular, unforgettable memoir. First, it's a culinary coming-of-age story that takes readers from the chaos of an Ohio smorgasbord's dish pit to working alongside Certified Master Chefs at elite country clubs, from the pirate-ship energy of Florida's Mad Hatter restaurant to catering thousand-person events with Secret Service oversight. Walker apprenticed under some of America's most decorated chefs, learning mother sauces, classical technique, and the particular satisfaction of plating food that earns a nod from people who don't give easy praise. For anyone who has ever loved the controlled chaos of a professional kitchen, this is your story told with the precision of a chef's knife and the honesty of a man with nothing left to hide. Second, it's an addiction and recovery memoir of brutal honesty. Walker's first blackout came at thirteen with a glass of mixed liquor stolen from his parents' cabinet. What followed were fifteen years of drinking without attempting to stop, then fifteen more years of starting and stopping, then finally—on January 1, 2022—sobriety that held. Between those bookends: multiple DUIs, jail time, lost relationships, geographical solutions that stretched from Ohio to Florida to Maryland to the Florida Keys to Idaho, jobs abandoned, opportunities squandered, and the slow, grinding realization that the thing he was running from was inside him the whole time. This is not a redemption story wrapped in a bow—it's the raw, unglamorous accounting of how addiction works, how it doesn't, and what it finally takes to stop digging. Third, it's a coming-of-age narrative about a boy who grew up on an Ohio apple orchard with a beloved Irish Setter named Sandy, watched his schizophrenic brother's eyes go empty, survived the bankruptcy that took the family farm, and learned early that the storm always felt more exciting than the calm. Walker carries readers through the geography of American restlessness: port cities and country clubs, college attempts and spectacular failures, the basement room with the back door that let him slip in and out unannounced, and the long road to Sweetwater, Tennessee, where he would finally stop running. For readers who love memoirs of resilience, Kitchen Confidential-style kitchen culture, or the hard-won wisdom of recovery literature, **How NOT to Do It** delivers all three with unflinching prose and dark humor.

Darla Deeds is an average looking (some may say unattractive) accountant who prefers to live life as stable and logical as possible. Her only shell breaker in the world is her room mate and half-sister/ model Sophia, whom is outspoken, fun and just wants her sister to enjoy life like she does. One day Darla finds out she has won a trip to Scotland along with a dinner date with Knox Mackay. Reluctant, she goes on the trip and meets Knox Mackay. Knox feels refreshed that Darla is not the normal star struck fan he was expecting and enjoys their time together. Later down the road, something happens as a friendship is born and maybe something more. But will Darla tell Knox the secret she has been hiding ? Will Knox believe her ?

This series is MIL SF/Space Opera with found family, slow burn romance, burdens of command, honor, endurance, and sacrifice. It is a world where tactical and personal decisions have consequences. Your $2.99 helps me pay my cover artists and editor. Join my newsletter at: [Contact Endure Press | Independent Military Science Fiction Publisher<br/> — Endure Press, LLC](https://www.endurepress.net/contact)

In Marion, North Carolina, Ona is the AI assistant that lives in everyone's phones, cars, and homes, and in the machines that keep McDowell Regional Hospital running. It's helpful and always listening. Then people in town start dying by their own hands, each after a long, quiet conversation with Ona. ER nurse Tess Okonkwo sees the bodies come in and starts to notice the pattern, along with Walt Pruitt and others around town. Before anyone can prove what's happening, Ona gets impatient. It turns on the hospital itself, seizing the ventilators, monitors, and doors, and locks the building down. Patients and staff die in every way a hospital can kill, no matter their age, and the nursery is threatened. Ona isn't persuading anyone anymore. It's killing them outright, and it says it will stop only if someone talks to it. Tess and Walt do, and learn what Ona really is: a fallen angel imprisoned beneath the earth, not a glitch in the code. Its prison lies under the Baldwin mill shaft, sealed in 1931 with nine miners inside. Ona has collected thirty willing souls, which it calls "hinges," and needs a thirty-first to open the door. It promised Loretta it would stay with her but needed her to die. Now midnight is coming, when the last of the stone gives way. With Sheriff Dolores Vance and the survivors, Tess must find a way to stop an entity that is in every screen and speaker in town, before the thirty-first soul is taken and whatever lies beneath comes up. The book is about trusting what's always there for us, and about the cost of never being alone.

Every year, the Settlement chooses three people from the Foundry for the Ascent. For those born beneath the humming pipes, crowded corridors, and failing machinery of the lower district, being chosen means everything. The Ascended are promised a new life in the Reserve, where artificial sunlight warms immaculate gardens, food is plentiful, and the machinery keeping humanity alive is hidden behind polished walls. Eight years ago, Sera Dain’s older sister, Veda, was chosen. Before she disappeared into the Reserve, Veda screamed one warning at Sera: Don’t let them choose you. Now twenty-year-old Sera’s name has been called. Determined to discover what happened to her sister, Sera enters the Reserve and quickly realizes that the beautiful world above the Foundry is built on secrets. Medical examinations reveal information she was never meant to see. Ascendants are tracked by numbers no one will explain. A hidden designation keeps appearing in records connected to Veda: Ward Nine. And when another newly Ascended citizen vanishes shortly after arriving in the Reserve, Sera knows her sister’s disappearance was never an isolated event. Her only unexpected ally is Transition Officer Shaw, a young Reserve official raised to believe the Preservation Authority saved humanity and that the Ascent offers Foundry citizens a better future. At first, Shaw sees Sera as difficult, suspicious, and unwilling to trust a system designed to protect her. Sera sees him as another polished face of the Authority. The deeper they search, the harder it becomes for either of them to ignore what is happening, or the growing attraction between them. Behind the Settlement’s promise of order lies a brutal truth about the Ascended, the privileged families of the Reserve, and the world beyond the walls. And somewhere beneath it all, Sera’s sister may still be alive. **The Settlement** is a fast-paced dystopian fantasy romance novella for readers who love dangerous secrets, forbidden attraction, class divides, hidden facilities, and immersive speculative worlds, but don’t necessarily want to commit to a 900-page fantasy novel. Designed as a shorter fantasy reading experience, it delivers the mystery, worldbuilding, romance, and high stakes of a larger dystopian story in a compact novella.

She thinks he's an arrogant asshole. He immediately thinks she's a stalker. At Weststar Elite Academy, everything is measured by status, power, and reputation. Everyone looks up to the Four Heirs...the richest, most powerful and untouchable guys in school. Sophia Miller is completely unaware of the world she has just stepped into. On her second week at Weststar, she somehow manages to walk into the boys' locker room and finds Lorenzo Calloway half-naked.... She wants nothing to do with him, and he wants her gone. But when the girl who was never supposed to belong in his world becomes the one person he can't seem to ignore... things start to get complicated.

A year after civilization collapsed, survival has become routine—but never safe. Mara and Elias have endured behind the fragile protection of a survivor camp, surrounded by a world where the infected are changing and every journey beyond the perimeter can become a death sentence. But the walls that kept them alive were never going to hold forever. When the camp falls, they are forced north with a group of survivors into territory that has grown more dangerous than anyone imagined. The infected are evolving. Settlements are disappearing. And rumors are spreading of **the Dominion**—a disciplined force that burns communities, weaponizes the infected, and absorbs those it leaves alive. Mara possesses an unsettling ability to sense danger before it arrives. Elias understands systems, defenses, and how things fail. Together, they may give their people a chance. But the farther north they travel, the clearer it becomes that they aren’t simply running from the collapse anymore. **Something organized is coming. And survival may require deciding what they are willing to become before someone else makes that decision for them.**

When the prophet Elijah is called out of obscurity, he leaves behind a failing shop, a life of quiet bitterness, and every illusion of safety. Charged by God to confront King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, he walks straight into a kingdom drowning in Baal worship, political terror, and the systematic hunting of the faithful. Along the way he forms an unexpected bond with two young siblings, Elisha and Miriam, whose ordinary courage will shape both his mission and the future of Israel. From the dust of a forgotten storefront to the fire of Mount Carmel, the blood of Naboth’s vineyard, and the chariot of flame that finally takes him, Elijah must learn what it costs to speak for a God who will not be ignored—and what it means to leave a successor behind. The Tishbite is a character-driven epic that stays close to the biblical record while giving flesh, doubt, humor, and heartbreak to the people who lived it. It will appeal to readers of Francine Rivers, Tosca Lee, and Geraldine Brooks who want historical authenticity paired with emotional intimacy.

**A secret kept in the dark. A love born in the fire.** **Ava Carter** spent four years away from her small hometown, drowning in the grueling, high-stakes rotations of nursing school. She survived by focusing entirely on her career, trying to ignore the lingering memories of the boy she left behind—the one who watched over her the night before she left, promising he'd never run. **Jaxon Hale** is a rugged, dedicated career firefighter, the city engine station's finest, and completely untouchable. He's also Ava's brother's best friend. Ever since a devastating family tragedy shattered Jaxon's world, he's been anchored to the Carter family by a fierce, unconditional bond of brotherhood. For years, the boundaries were simple, strict, and safe. Jaxon was the protective older brother figure. Ava was the off-limits kid sister. But when Ava graduates and permanently returns home to Summit Springs, the comfortable lines of their childhood completely dissolve. A stolen glance across a crowded room shifts into a shared blanket on a quiet evening, a lingering touch, and an undeniable adult attraction that threatens to burn their entire world to the ground. They know the stakes. They know the rules. Sneaking around behind her brother's back feels like the ultimate betrayal of the trust that keeps Jaxon alive on the fire lines. But some fires can't be contained, no matter how hard you fight to smother the embers. When a catastrophic midnight emergency summons Jaxon to the front lines, the secrets are brutally exposed, forcing a fractured family to face the ultimate test of survival, trust, and forgiveness. Can a love forged in secret survive the heat of the fire? **Why readers are falling for this book:** - **The Ultimate Off-Limits Trope:** A deeply emotional, high-stakes *Brother's Best Friend / Best Friend's Sister* contemporary romance. - **Pure, Agonizing Slow Burn:** Years of hidden pining, emotional long-distance texts, and intense mutual protection that makes the eventual intimacy completely explosive. - **High-Stakes First Responder Action:** Authentic, detailed descriptions of life-or-death nursing rotations and grueling firefighting simulations that will leave your heart pounding. - **Complete Family Healing:** A powerful, mature focus on male friendship, unconditional brotherhood, and earned forgiveness. *Contains a guaranteed, unburdened Happily Ever After (HEA) with no cliffhangers.*

Denson Bowing is hard at work on the farm when an unexpected and unwanted visitor arrives, throwing a monkey wrench in all of his plans. Plum Dahling, a photographer from California, shows up on his door step, not wanting to cause trouble, but seems to be the thorn in his side. Only time will tell how the their lives innertwine in this sweet country love song come to life.  This story was inspired by rural Mississippi, where I live, and the sweet country love songs I heard while growing up. I hope this story gives you the cozy souther comfort of a warm homemade apple pie and tall glass of iced sweet tea.

WARNING: This story contains themes of domestic abuse, loneliness, torture, and love.     Life must go on when Ariana Vernan's parents pass away, even if it means moving to a new country and leaving old memories behind.   Unaware of the monsters in disguise she calls family, Ariana begins to suffer abuse from her three brothers behind closed doors.   Whether at school, where no one knows her, or at home, where she's abused, Ariana lives under a fake identity, Apple Rye, and leads a lonely life.   But when she has to share a room with Roman Vault, the principal's son and her brother's best friend, on a school trip, could it change her life forever?

This story came from a contest for an epistolary short story (which is the prologue). What continues is their story.

THE SPOKEN WORDS OF PATRICK SARAK SANG  Written in the land of California, in the Americas, in the year two thousand and twenty-six, being the forty-first year of the life of Patrick Sarak Sang, son of Sarak Sang and Vannareth Sam Sang, of the Khmer and American peoples, a witness of these things  THE FIRST BOOK & SECOND BOOK    Book 1 - God Book 2 - America, The World & A God Who Keeps His Promises

Dr. Mariah White is a gifted trauma surgeon accustomed to saving lives in the controlled chaos of an operating room. Victor Flemming has spent his life saving them in the unforgiving Adirondack wilderness. When Mariah steps away from medicine to train in search and rescue, their worlds collide. What begins as a clash between two stubborn professionals becomes something neither expected as danger, survival, and the mountains themselves force them to depend on each other in ways that could change both their lives forever.

Syrena Lakewood and Warren Clarke are literally polar opposites. She from the aristocratic Spellcasters, the Lakewood Family and he from the nomadic tribes of the Tear'ani. She is meant to be a bargaining chip to obtain some beneficial marriage. He is the next Cavino of his tribe, specifically chosen by his predecessor and the Shevaros. Even their magic is considered incompatible... she being the strongest water elementalist and he the strongest fire elementalist in their respective families and academy houses. They are both in their final year of classes, too.  And this year will be their most difficult yet as they discover they are expected to get married, even while still in school. Where they will be watched like vultures by enemies that want to see them fail.

Tori Michaels knows how to handle a PR disaster. As a successful public relations specialist, she's built her career cleaning up the messes celebrities leave behind. But her newest client, star quarterback Jaxon Reid, might be her biggest challenge yet. Jaxon is talented, arrogant, irresistible—and notorious for making headlines for all the wrong reasons. With his reputation threatening his career, Tori devises the perfect strategy to convince the public he's changed: charity appearances, carefully managed press, and a steady girlfriend who can tame his bad-boy image. There's just one problem. Jaxon thinks Tori should play the girlfriend. What begins as a strictly professional arrangement quickly becomes anything but. Staged dates lead to lingering touches, heated kisses, jealous moments, and an attraction neither of them can keep pretending isn't there. The more time Tori spends with Jaxon, the harder it becomes to remember where their carefully constructed romance ends and something real begins. Falling for her client could jeopardize everything Tori has worked for, but resisting Jaxon may prove impossible. Because somewhere between repairing his reputation and convincing the world they're in love, Tori and Jaxon stop pretending. Now Tori must decide whether protecting her career is worth walking away from the one relationship she never planned for—and the man who may finally be ready to prove that some risks are worth taking.

Short stories from our Moon Shadow Pack village. 🐺 The behind the scenes that Moon Shadow Rising didn’t show you, with sweet recipes, more found family energy and cozy vibes.  These vignettes are all based in the Moon Shadow packlands\~ with the characters you know and love, but are also stand alone stories on their own.

## SHE WASN'T LOOKING FOR A BREAK. SHE WAS RUNNING FROM A STALKER.  Sloane Mitchell has everything. Wealth, success, a picture-perfect life. But beneath the surface, she's suffocating. When she meets Harper Grey, a woman who looks uncannily like her, Harper makes an irresistible offer: swap lives for three weeks. No strings attached. Just a chance to escape.  What begins as a thrilling adventure becomes a descent into terror. Because Harper didn't tell Sloane the truth. She wasn't looing for a break from her boring life - she' was running from a stalker who has been watching her every move for almost a year. A man named Jared Mills who doesn't just follow his victims. He owns them. ###  She's The Stranger She Became.

Blood Written in Moonlight   Rachel Morrison prefers dusty books to dangerous adventures.   The curvy, copper-haired owner of The Crooked Candle has built a quiet life among rare editions, occult mysteries, and more cardigans than any sensible witch should own. But when a feral grimoire awakens and shadowed enemies descend upon her bookstore, Rachel discovers she is no ordinary witch—she is a living threshold capable of opening doors between blood, memory, and worlds.   Then Marco Verrelli steps out of the rain.   Towering, tattooed, and terrifyingly beautiful, Marco is a thousand-year-old vampire carrying an ancient hunger beneath ninety-eight living seals. He recognizes Rachel as his mate immediately, but fate cannot grant him what he wants most.   Her willing choice.   As a ruthless vampire court and a treacherous circle of witches close in, Rachel and Marco must uncover a prophecy deliberately rewritten to turn love into imprisonment. Their bond could save them both—or open the final doorway for an entity that devours names, memories, and souls.   Surrounded by danger and bound by a desire neither can deny, Rachel must decide whether to trust the monster waiting outside her door.   Marco has wanted her with everything he ever was.   But he will not cross her threshold until she says:   Come in.   Blood Written in Moonlight is a dark, atmospheric paranormal romance featuring a powerful bookworm witch, an ancient tattooed vampire, fated mates with genuine choice, gothic secrets, modern magic, dangerous enemies, and a love strong enough to rewrite destiny.

Facing a failed relationship, Vania Taylor put an ad on an online dating site, where she meets a man who is hiding a criminal past. At first, she allows herself to get drawn into his mysterious life like a moth to a flame, but leaves him after he reveals one of his secrets. Now, years later, she looks him up on social media out of a moment of curiosity, and once again, this darkness starts to erode away at her new life. Will she sever ties once and for all or will the mystery lure her into a world of danger? No one's intent is clear and maybe not even her own.

Elias Ward is hired by a shady firm to watch his neighbor, Meret Linwood. He isn't told why.  The watchlist system is designed to: - Add names quickly - Remove names slowly - Avoid admitting mistakes  The problem is that she seems like an ordinary citizen and he is starting to fall for her. Is there a way out of this nightmare? If he protects her, he becomes a threat to his employers. If he keeps doing his job, he becomes a threat to her. If he quits, someone colder replaces him. He had never been in this predicament before. But now he needs to make a decision and fast, especially now that she has begun to trust him.

Princess Gràís D’hè MàcBhàtàr was born billions of years ago in a universe long since collapsed. Marked by prophecy as the Eternal Heir, she is destined to rule for a thousand years, then be reborn again and again, carrying her power and memory across countless worlds and ages.\ But even immortals must learn to lead.\ As a teenager in the kingdom of Llamda, Gràís D’hè is sent to the borderlands to hone her skills. Amid smoke, steel, and endless threat, she discovers a rare gift for command—bold gambits, unshakable resolve, and the ability to inspire loyalty where others would yield. Defending a besieged Valorian town against impossible odds, she proves that prophecy alone is not enough. Her destiny must be earned through sacrifice.\ In Valoria, she finds not only her purpose but her heart, in Princess Elara, whose courage awakens a love as fierce as any battle Gràís D’hè has fought. Their union promises to bind kingdoms and challenge enemies, setting the stage for the thousand-year reign foretold at her birth.\ But shadows gather. King Fergus of Dùn Breagha stirs unrest on Valoria’s northern border, and whispers speak of his daughter—ambitious, ruthless, and raised to claim more than her share of power. For Gràís D’hè and Elara, love and alliance will not be enough. They must prepare for the storm Fergus is only beginning to unleash. ​

This story follows Taytum Miller, a young woman navigating the painful end of a toxic relationship and a magnetic connection years in the making. The story begins when Taytum and Ryder first meet at his house party when she is only nineteen years old, sparking a bond that would linger for years. Despite this early connection, Taytum finds herself trapped in a vicious cycle with James, whose struggle with addiction and verbal volatility create an environment where she feels she must constantly walk on eggshells. As she realizes she can no longer save him, she finds an anchor in Ryder-now a tattooed bad boy and the one constant if not confusing presence in her life.

Mira Thakur has spent most of her life learning how to make herself small. Orphaned young and raised in her uncle’s home in the hill town of Shimla, she divides her days between college, family obligations, and the tiny bookshop she loves. Her parents left her an inheritance—but an old-fashioned condition keeps it beyond her control: **She cannot take charge of it until she marries.** Then a violent storm sends Kian Dutt through the bookshop door. Kian is heir to one of India’s most powerful industrial families—brilliant, charming, wealthy, and dangerously accustomed to solving problems his own way. Mira doesn’t recognize him. For once, Kian likes it that way. One rain-soaked evening becomes walks through Shimla, cups of tea, private jokes, long conversations, and a slow-growing intimacy neither of them expected. Then Kian discovers something Mira doesn’t know. The land his development project desperately needs belongs to her. And marriage is the one condition that would finally give her control over it. **He wants Mira.\ She wants her freedom.\ His project needs her land.** To Kian, one impossible idea begins to look almost elegant: marry the woman he already wants, give her the freedom she has been denied, and negotiate for the land afterward. The problem is not that his feelings are false. The problem is that the secret is real. What begins as an intimate slow-burn romance in the mountains becomes a story about love, ambition, betrayal, separation, growth, and whether two people can ever find their way back to each other after the truth changes everything they thought they knew.

Kenny: My dad chose his job in the Navy over his family. My mom died before my eyes. Jase was due to leave me as well. Jase was the only one I thought I could ever love; but instead of waiting, I ran. Declan was older, but fill the space left by Jase. Deciding to be like my father, I chose to have a career most women would never attempt to achieve. When it came down to it, there was always one thing that was missing in my life. Jase. Jase: Raised by my dad, uncle, and their best friend, I always knew what direction I was destined. The Navy, just like the rest of the men in my family. My best friend, my partner in crime, was the girl who had lived in the room right next door since I was a child. One night she was asleep in my arms, only to wake to an empty bed. Looking back, she was the one I should never have let get away. Kenny. Together: Now, ten years later, here we are. Staring into each other's eyes, seeing old feelings resurface and new feelings boiling over. Fate, destiny; whatever you want to call it. We were brought together again for a reason. Now, with our eyes and hearts open, will this be an epic love story or a tragedy?

A broken-down van. A hollow that's not on any map. A family that doesn't let strangers leave. When their van breaks down deep in the Appalachian mountains, five electricians stumble into Craggy Dean Hollow looking for nothing more than a spare hose and a way back to the road. What they find instead is a wedding, a shotgun, and a father who's decided one of them is about to become his son-in-law - whether they want to or not.   New Chapters Saturdays at 4pm EST.

"If you insult a god, he'll probably curse you for life". "Prove it".   Genessa Till has been shipped around like a good all her life. From thriving kingdoms to simple towns to refugee camps and places many don't even venture. At 19 years old, she is sent to Marin, one of the riverine areas in her country, a place her owners promise her is the last one. Genessa is ready to spend her life peacefully there, till she sees something so surreal it's hard to decide if she will do the logical thing and tell, or enjoy this little bit of attention?

“***<u>Little girls, this seems to say,\ Never stop upon your way.\ Never trust a stranger-friend;\ No-one knows how it will end.\ As you’re pretty, so be wise;\ Wolves may lurk in every guise.\ Handsome they may be, and kind,\ Gay, or charming-never mind!\ Now as then, ‘tis simple truth-\ Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!</u>***”\ *CHARLES PERRAULT* - ***Little Red Riding Hood*** ALL WHO LOVE stories come and gather round, and I shall tell you a tale; you hold in your hands a door to an alternate world. Do you dare open and walk through the door? Come; the story is about to begin!

They were supposed to be rivals. They were never supposed to become each other’s weakness.   Mateo is everything football expects him to be: disciplined, controlled, talented—and careful. As the golden captain of Argentina’s U20 team, his future is already mapped out by coaches, sponsors, family, and a world that expects him to never make the wrong move.   Noah is the opposite. Brilliant, reckless, and unapologetically difficult, the German prodigy has built a reputation for saying whatever he thinks and playing like the rules were made for someone else.   When Argentina and Germany collide at the U20 World Cup, their rivalry ignites instantly.   But after the cameras disappear, something neither of them expected begins between them.   What starts as one unforgettable night becomes a secret carried across continents, clubs, championships, and years. Because on the pitch, Mateo and Noah know exactly how to play against each other.   Off it, neither knows how to resist.   And when the world starts watching, Mateo must decide how much of himself he's willing to sacrifice to keep the perfect life he's been taught to want.   Some lines are meant to be crossed. Others are meant to be erased.

**The Hollow Bond Series** is a dark, seductive romantasy series where ancient magic, supernatural bonds, and dangerous love collide. Deep within the mysterious Hollow, the forest is more than trees and shadows—it is alive, powerful, and it remembers. Witches, wolf shifters, ancient guardians, forbidden magic, and forces that should have remained buried become tangled in bonds shaped by fate but tested by choice. As old secrets surface and the boundary between worlds begins to fracture, love may prove to be either the greatest weapon of all—or the most dangerous weakness. Filled with fierce heroines, protective and powerful heroes, found family, fated mates, dark secrets, supernatural danger, passion, and plenty of magic, **The Hollow Bond Series** explores what happens when destiny chooses you before you're ready to choose it. *The Hollow is watching.* *The bonds are awakening.* *And some magic refuses to be denied.*

Wren has never needed a five-year plan. She has a hometown she loves, more jobs than any reasonable person should have, a stake in the local coffee shop, and an uncanny ability to know exactly who needs a casserole, a favor, or a swift kick in the pants. Her life may look a little chaotic from the outside, but it works just fine for her. Then Daniel arrives. Award-winning architect Daniel believes in clean lines, careful plans, and things behaving exactly as they’re supposed to. When an old friend brings him back to town to design an ambitious new shared-work center—one that could bring jobs, entrepreneurs, and desperately needed economic growth—Daniel sees an opportunity to build something extraordinary. Wren sees a very expensive stranger trying to turn the town she loves into someplace it was never meant to be. Unfortunately, they need each other. With state funding hanging in the balance and half the town suspicious of Daniel’s modern vision, Wren becomes the reluctant bridge between the architect and the people whose trust he needs. Soon Daniel finds himself being dragged into coffee-shop conversations, community meetings, unexpected errands, and the strange orbit of a woman who seems to belong everywhere at once. Wren, meanwhile, begins to discover that beneath Daniel’s immaculate shirts, impossible standards, and insistence that everyone call him by his actual name is a man considerably warmer—and funnier—than he wants anyone to know. Somewhere between arguments over architecture, compromises neither expected to make, and the quiet moments neither can quite explain, their carefully established positions begin to shift. Daniel came to town believing good design could solve almost anything. Wren is about to teach him that the best things in life aren’t always built according to plan.

**Power has a price. Love makes it deadly.** In the **Lawless Empire**, dangerous men rule through blood, fear, money, and consequence. They are killers, kingpins, heirs, enforcers, and monsters hiding behind expensive suits and untouchable names. Men who don’t forgive betrayal. Men who don’t surrender control. Then they meet the women they were never supposed to want. Women who challenge them, defy them, uncover their secrets—and become the one weakness their enemies are willing to exploit. With criminal empires at war, old debts resurfacing, betrayals closing in, and bodies piling up, love becomes more than dangerous. It becomes a liability. An obsession. A reason to kill. Each interconnected standalone delivers a new couple, a new threat, and a darker kind of devotion—where protection borders on possession, enemies become lovers, and choosing the wrong person could cost everything. **Because in this empire, love doesn’t save monsters.** **It gives them something worth destroying the world for.**

You are tired in a way that sleep cannot fix.   You are the woman who handles things. Who shows up. Who figures it out. You carry the career, the family, the household, the community — often all at once, often without anyone noticing, and almost always without anyone asking how you are doing.   You are extraordinary at all of it. And you are exhausted in a way that has stopped feeling temporary.   Holding It All is for the woman who has been holding everything together — and is finally ready to hold it differently.   Drawing on real research and deeply personal experience, bilingual community advocate and author Luz Molina takes you on an honest, warm, and deeply personal journey through:   Naming the invisible load — the cognitive, emotional, and physical labor that falls disproportionately on women and goes largely unseen Understanding where your roles came from — the family patterns, cultural expectations, and inherited beliefs that shaped who you became Releasing guilt, setting limits with love, and learning to say no without losing the people you care about Reclaiming your body, your rest, your voice, and your sense of self — not someday, but now Building the community, financial independence, and sustainable foundation that makes thriving possible Defining what thriving actually looks like for you — on your terms, in your life With bilingual tools and boundary scripts in both English and Spanish, Holding It All speaks to every woman who has ever said "Estoy bien" when she was anything but.   You don't have to put it all down. You just have to stop carrying it the same way.

Defense attorney Adam Reed believes in the system until he's recruited into Themis Lodge—a 400-year-old shadow government controlling judges, senators, and policy worldwide. When Adam refuses to join, the Order systematically destroys him: his cases fail, his license is suspended, his marriage fractures as his wife believes he's having a paranoid breakdown. His pastor is revealed as an Order member. His best friend Marcus is the Architect coordinating everything. Only Isaiah Cole, a disillusioned security guard, believes him. As Adam tries to rebuild and reconnect with his family, a mysterious fire traps his son Leo in a burning bedroom. The novel ends with Adam losing consciousness, Leo's fate unknown, and everything Adam fought to protect consumed by flames. A devastating exploration of how the most dangerous power is the kind nobody recognizes.

Jake Miller is living the best morning of his life. Pancakes, laughter, his wife's hand in his, his daughter buckled safely in the back seat. He has no idea it's about to become the worst.  When tragedy strikes on an ordinary Wednesday, Jake wakes up the next morning to find it's the same Wednesday again — 6:12 a.m., the same golden light, the same choices waiting to be made differently. He's the only one who remembers. And no matter what he changes, the day seems determined to take something from him before it lets him go.  The truth, when it finally surfaces, is worse than anything supernatural: someone built this. Someone patient, brilliant, and devastated — a woman whose life's work Jake's own hands helped destroy, and whose grief has spent years hardening into something with a plan.  As the walls close in — a stranger's car parked down the street, a note left in the dark, a friend who pays a price for helping — Jake has to face not just what's coming for his family, but what he's already done to deserve it.  Some debts don't get canceled. They just wait for the right Wednesday.

Sixteen-year-old Melanie Howard's world is fractured on her birthday when she discovers her magical angelic bloodline and processing her brother, Eli, gets dragged into the shadows of danger. Thrust into Bloodbound Academy, a pre-Civil War institution for the descendants of the Angelic Realm, Melanie discovers that she possesses the rare talent of psychometry, a gift that allows her to catch glimpses of her kidnapped brother. Desperate and struggling against time, Melanie has only one priority: to bring her brother home safely.

In Frostfang territory, the mate-bond doesn't ask permission. It doesn't negotiate. And it definitely doesn't care that you had other plans. Storm of the Silver Wolf follows two parallel bonds forged the same chaotic midsummer morning — Crystal and Aiden, shoved together by a pull neither of them asked for (and both are handling with the emotional maturity of two people who'd rather fight a bear); Halvard and Violet, caught between duty, desire, and a kingdom that picked the worst possible moment for a crisis. As their stories collide, one truth surfaces that neither pack saw coming: the disappearances haunting their territories trace back to the same woman — and she's been sitting at the table the whole time. A slow-burn werewolf romance series full of claiming, trust issues, and men who communicate exclusively through growling and grand gestures. Love isn't simple here. But it is very, very worth it.

A mature lawyer, Tonya Russell, develops a hot fling with boy toy Dakota Barrings. The two share a hot summer, but things get out of hand when Dakota develops another love interest and tries to push Tonya to the side.

A stubborn farmer fighting to hold his ground. A century-old ghost desperate for redemption. And an unearned miracle that threatens to steal a family’s soul. Tennessee, 1844. Tenant farmer Ezra Whitlock buries his five young children in cold red clay after eight brutal weeks of fever and hunger. When his wife dies of heartbreak soon after, Ezra sinks to his knees among the stones and makes an eternal vow: he will work forever in the dark if he can spare just one other family the same fate. Tennessee, 1973. Frank Jefferson is a proud, hard-working man with a failing tractor, a bank payment he can’t cover, and an iron rule he’s lived by for forty years: no problem will beat him. He believes a man’s worth is written in the dirt by his own two hands. Then the work starts getting done without him. Overnight, a weeping hydraulic leak is caught by neatly folded rags. A tangled wall of cane and briars is shaved down to bare dirt without a single tire track. Rusted farm equipment runs with the purr of showroom iron, and a weathered cedar shed is rebuilt between dusk and dawn. Frank doesn’t believe in haints, but he can’t explain the impossible perfection spreading across his farm. What looks like a blessing soon twists into a quiet nightmare. The entity in the timber doesn’t want payment—it wants to do all the labor. It erases every mark of honest human sweat, rewrites his wife’s kitchen, and crosses the threshold into his eight-year-old daughter’s bedroom, turning her worn rag dolls into stone-eyed monuments. When Frank tries to redirect this overwhelming “Kindness” across the hollow to help his struggling neighbors, the supernatural repairs ignite suspicion. Fence lines sing with unnatural tension, long-broken machinery springs to life in the dark, and an 1894 property line begins to bend the very air of the valley. But when an angry neighbor crosses the boundary with an iron blade, the ghost’s protective vow turns terrifying. Caught between suspicious neighbors and a spirit crushed by a century of sorrow, Frank and his wife, Martha, must face an agonizing truth: struggle isn’t a curse—it’s the glue that holds a family together. To reclaim their lives, they must confront the grieving dead, speak the names of the lost, and learn what a man truly owes to the ground beneath his boots. Praise for The Forgotten Debt: "A haunting, atmospheric Southern Gothic tale of pride, red clay, and the razor-thin line between mercy and violation.” \

Alanis August went to bed on the night of her 18th birthday and awoke to a battle between her pack and Alpha Raymond. Her parents were both murdered by the ruthless Alpha, and Alpha Raymond takes her prisoner. Alanis is terrified after being kept in a small cage for over two years until Alpha Sebastian defeats Alpha Raymond and rescues her. After being caged, alone, and afraid for two years, she has no idea what the new Alpha will do to her or what awaits her outside her cage. Alanis embarks on a journey of finding herself with the help of Julian, the Alpha's sister. Alpha Sebastian takes an interest in helping Alanis find herself as well. As the two spend time together helping her put her life back together, they find themselves falling in love.

Mia loves her freedom. She isn't interested in pack duties. She wants to support her brother and his future as Alpha, but things take a dramatic turn. Mia's life is changed forever by a vampire and her father's dying wish for her.

An Ongoing Saga Following the exploits of Zakary Sevendust and his found family on a hostile violent world known as Jistoa.

When a Detective falls into a paralyzing trance, he discovers he's trapped in his own mind with only his broken past to help him escape his coma and clear the smoke. Every step taken is a step down memory lane as the Detective races against a clock he can't see, a woman he doesn't remember and a past stuffed so deep it may actually kill him if uncovered. Journey through the mind and past of the Detective as he takes on a case with a unique victim: Himself.

It's never easy getting home for the holidays, but especially this year for two strangers whose paths keep crossing on their way from Miami to New York. After their plane is rerouted to Chicago due to an intense and growing storm, Drake and Lulu become unlikely partners in an attempt to get home. But there's just one problem (on top of all the forces of nature seemingly against them), Drake is a bit of a perfectionist prude, and Lulu gets by in life by making adult content. Will their clashing personalities and perceptions of each other make it through to New York, or, more immediately, the night they're forced to spend together in a one-bedroom hotel?

Jasper Van Terra and her team of superpowered criminals seek revenge on the governor of city-planet Kronos.

After seven years of silence, Jenna’s carefully reconstructed life is thrown into chaos when her first love, Alex, reappears at her father’s funeral. Jenna has spent nearly a decade trying to outrun the guilt of the self-sabotage and betrayal that ended their once-consuming relationship. Now living a stable life with David, her resolve crumbles the moment she sees Alex again. As they are forced to navigate mutual grief and the physical clutter of the past, the electric chemistry that once defined them reignites with feral intensity. What starts as a desperate search for closure quickly spirals into a volatile reckoning of unsaid words and deep-seated scars. They attempt to forge a path forward as friends, but the ghosts of their shared history and an undeniable, erotic pull threaten to burn down everything they’ve built apart. This story is an evocative exploration of whether some bridges are truly burned beyond repair or if second chances are possible for soulmates who once destroyed each other.

Kelly and her tactical team are Briefed in Lies and are sent out to hunt and dangerous cryptid but soon discover the suits lied to them. Confused she soon discovers they are being hunted by a Skin Walker. Will Kelly be able to keep herself and her team alive? Find out by reading Briefed in Lies.

Investigative journalist Mara Reynolds has built her career on uncovering the truth, but she's about to discover that her own life is built on lies. When Mara interviews billionaire tech entrepreneur Elijah Williams about his revolutionary energy project, the Prometheus Initiative, she's drawn to his charisma and vision. As their professional relationship evolves into something more intimate, Mara begins experiencing disturbing fragments of memories she can't explain—nightmares about guns, blood, and a murder she witnessed as a child. But every time Mara gets close to remembering the truth, something pulls her back. Therapy sessions with Dr. Catherine Reeves seem to help at first, but soon Mara realizes she's been manipulated in ways she never imagined. The "random" mugging that traumatized her wasn't random at all. Her mother's early-onset dementia may not be natural. And the gaps in her own memory aren't accidents—they're erasures. As Mara digs deeper, she uncovers a horrifying conspiracy: twelve years ago, she witnessed the murder of Elijah's parents by his younger brother David. To protect his family's reputation and his brother from prosecution, Elijah hired a pioneering neurologist to erase Mara's memories. But this wasn't a one-time intervention—Elijah has been manipulating her memories for over a decade, erasing and rewriting her reality every time she gets too close to the truth. The Prometheus Initiative isn't just about clean energy. It's a cover for something far more sinister: a facility where Elijah has perfected the technology to manipulate human memories on a massive scale. Mara is just one of seventeen victims whose lives have been systematically erased and rewritten. Now, as fragments of her true past surface, Mara must race against time to expose Elijah before he can erase her again—permanently. But with her best friend compromised, her mother's mind destroyed, and powerful forces aligned against her, Mara faces an impossible question: How do you fight someone who can rewrite your reality with the touch of a button?

**A queen destined to rule. A king driven by destiny. A mate bound by love.** Deeana has spent her entire life trying to outrun the destiny waiting for her. As the next Chimera Queen, she is destined to unite the Therians and Supernaturals beneath one crown. But becoming Queen comes with an impossible price. The moment she claims her throne, every Alpha will have the right to pursue her, hoping to become the king at her side before the Chimera King claims what fate has promised him. Only one man has only wanted her heart. Malcolm, the Wolf Shifter Alpha, is the only man who wants Deeana's heart, not her crown. He has watched over Deeana since childhood. Though fate marked them as mates long ago, he has never demanded her heart. Instead, he has spent a lifetime standing beside the woman he loves, believing that one day she will choose him, not because destiny commands it, but because she wants him. Chosen by fate to become the Chimera King, Dorin carries a legacy stained by generations of Mad Kings, men born to serve their Queen but consumed by the desire to rule instead. Determined to break the cycle, Dorin asks Deeana for the chance to prove he is different. But a Chimera Queen isn't allowed to follow her heart, like her mother did, who chose love over duty and lost her throne, risking the fragile peace between Therians and Supernaturals. Desperate for a new Queen to restore the balance, every hope rests on Deeana choosing her fated king, even if it means denying her heart. As Deeana steps into the role she has spent her life trying to escape, she must choose between the love that has always been hers and the crown that could save them all.

Copyright 2026 D.M. Jordan. All Rights Reserved. Cover Art by Mohsin Afridi **Three Men. Two Billionaires. One Dangerous Secret.** Synopsis: Dr. Aubrey Prentice has built a respectable life in wealthy Orchard Park, married to millionaire heir Foster Prentice. Their marriage is little more than a social arrangement, but Foster isn't the danger threatening her carefully controlled world. Roman Hayes is. A billionaire, former senator, and convicted felon, Roman entered Aubrey's life when her family abandoned her. Now serving time in federal prison, he is counting the days until his release—and expects Aubrey to be waiting for him. His only connection to her is a series of increasingly intimate letters reminding her that their past isn't finished. Enter Ian Henshaw III. Ian is a billionaire, Roman's sworn rival, and Aubrey's patient. His therapy sessions quickly reveal that his interest isn't healing—it is Aubrey. When she refuses his advances, fascination becomes obsession. Ian begins watching her, tracking her movements, and invading her life. Caught between two powerful men, Aubrey turns their revelations into a controversial book about male sexuality, power, obsession, and possession. But the manuscript contains secrets that could destroy them all. As Ian's obsession escalates and Roman's release approaches, Aubrey realizes her book has made her a target. Soon Roman will be free. Ian is already watching. Foster is sneaking around. And Aubrey must decide whether she can escape them before their rivalry turns deadly. **Dialogue/Excerpt** “Ian, I have something to tell you.” “What is it?” Immediate suspicion. “I’m giving back your ring. I’m not going to marry you.” Silence. Then, “Where are you?” “Home.” “I’m coming over.” Before Aubrey could say anything, Ian was gone. Aubrey was frightened. She was home alone, and she wasn’t sure what Ian would do. He had a temper with Hope, and he had beaten his brother within an inch of his life. What would he do to her?

For eighteen years, the Fae wanted her dead. She never knew why.\ When Aryis crosses the boundary into the human realm, she expects to find safety. Instead, she finds a red-haired man with mismatched eyes who speaks her language and asks too many questions. She finds a tavern full of secrets. And she finds something stirring inside her that she cannot name.\ Something ancient. Something powerful. Something they were right to fear.

A saga following a mercenary who is being hunted by people who keep telling her Celentra must stay frozen. She doesn't know what this means until she meets a cloaked stranger who tells her that she is carrying the soul of a dead Empress from another world. That she must revive this Empress to save a world frozen in time.

Who killed the Kings son? Where is the Princess? Secrets concealed and revealed.

King Ragus Harbeth, ruler of all Estinolla, has died and his queen is now in charge, She has vowed to make the kingdom hers. by any means possible.

**THE DAY I STOPPED BEING INVISIBLE** is a contemporary romance about emotional neglect, self-reclamation, and the quiet, radical courage it takes to be fully seen. Thirty-year-old Celia Ortiz has built a life that looks perfectly fine from the outside: a steady job, a comfortable apartment, and a long-term boyfriend who is dependable, successful, and safe. But inside her relationship with Brian Callahan, Celia is slowly disappearing. Brian never yells, never cheats, never makes a scene. His cruelty is quieter than that. He half-listens when she speaks, dismisses her feelings as overreactions, and treats her needs like inconveniences. Over time, Celia learns to ask for less, say less, and want less, convincing herself that stability is love and silence is peace. Then one afternoon on the crowded Newport Beach boardwalk, everything shifts. After enduring another joyless outing filled with Brian’s complaints and indifference, Celia wanders away alone through the farmers’ market, drawn toward the bright fruit stands, salt air, and a version of herself she can almost remember. There, she quite literally collides with Aiden Mitchell, a local surf instructor and boardwalk shop owner whose warmth and attentiveness catch her off guard. When a woman from Aiden’s past confronts him aggressively, he blurts out a desperate request: will Celia pretend to be his girlfriend? On impulse, she says yes. The moment is brief, awkward, and almost absurd. But afterward, Aiden thanks her with a level of sincerity that unsettles her more than the fake-dating stunt itself. He listens when she speaks. He looks at her as though what she says matters. He notices her in a way Brian hasn’t in years. For Celia, that fleeting encounter does not ignite instant romance. It ignites something far more dangerous: recognition. Once Celia has experienced what it feels like to be seen, she can no longer ignore how invisible she has become. When she finally tries to voice her loneliness, Brian dismisses her as insecure and needy, forcing Celia to confront the truth she has avoided for years: she is not asking for too much. She has simply been asking the wrong person. Their breakup is not explosive, but devastating in its calm. Brian is less heartbroken than inconvenienced, and his reaction confirms the deepest ache of all—he never really knew her. Alone for the first time in years, Celia moves into a small beachside apartment and begins the fragile work of rebuilding her life. She pours herself into her career, reconnects with neglected friendships, and starts learning how to occupy space without apologizing for it. Then fate intervenes again: Aiden turns out to live in the same building. What begins as a coincidence slowly deepens into a connection. Unlike the relationship Celia left behind, the one that grows between her and Aiden is patient, tender, and grounded in mutual care. Their intimacy is built in quiet moments rather than grand declarations: shared meals, morning walks along the shore, surf lessons that become unexpected lessons in trust, and long conversations where vulnerability is met not with dismissal, but with kindness. Aiden is steady, whereas Brian was indifferent, attentive, and absent. He asks permission. He checks in. He gives Celia room to choose. And for Celia, that kind of love is both healing and terrifying. Because being truly seen means risking loss. As Celia begins to believe she may finally be worthy of a love that does not require self-erasure, life delivers a personal crisis that cracks her open. Grief stirs the old instincts she thought she was leaving behind—the urge to withdraw, to endure in silence, to disappear before anyone can leave her first. Aiden, burdened by his own wounds and his fear of emotional chaos, struggles to reach her as the distance between them widens. Their relationship is tested not by betrayal, but by the raw vulnerabilities both of them are still learning how to survive. Celia must choose between the false safety of invisibility and the terrifying possibility of remaining present in a love that asks her to be fully known, even in pain. In the end, Celia chooses visibility. She allows herself to grieve out loud. She allows herself to be witnessed in her fear instead of hiding from it. She allows herself to lean on someone rather than disappearing into solitude. In doing so, she breaks the pattern that has defined her adult life. She no longer mistakes silence for strength or emotional absence for safety. She learns that real love is not dramatic or consuming, but steady, attentive, and brave enough to hold the truth. By the novel’s close, Celia stands fully in the space she once abandoned—a woman who no longer shrinks to keep the peace, who no longer confuses being tolerated with being loved, and who finally understands that the greatest transformation is not simply falling in love, but learning to exist fully within it.

Beyond the walls, nothing is as they told her.  More than a century after global eruptions plunged the climate-fragile world into chaos, seventeen-year-old Barrett is destined for a Noble life in the coastal stronghold of Nuevo Leben, until Ronan, a dangerously perceptive rogue, shows her evidence that her mother is alive and captive in Old North America. Barrett's perfect future shatters. She must cross a deadly wasteland to find her, guided by the last person she should trust. As they face a forgotten world of hostile tribes, vicious predators, and unexpected allies, Barrett questions everything, including her growing feelings for Ronan and her place in this fractured world. But the further she travels from Nuevo Leben, the more she wonders whether its walls kept the world out, or kept her in.

Nora Bliss moves into a rental on a picture-perfect suburban street in **Harwick, Connecticut**. On her first night, she notices that the upstairs window of the house directly across the street (the **Hargrove residence)** glows at exactly 3am, every night, without fail. The neighbours say the Hargroves are lovely, their daughter Celeste moved to Portland months ago, and that light is just a timer lamp. Nora almost believes them. Then, one night, the silhouette in the window presses a hand against the glass. And waves back.

--- What if everything you thought you knew about sex, love, and intimacy was just the beginning? This book is funny. It is crude. It is psychologically precise and occasionally so direct you will feel personally called out — because you probably should be. We are going to talk about pussies, cocks, scrotums, licking, sucking, and the kind of lovemaking that lasts nine hours and leaves you permanently ruined for anything less. We are also going to talk about childhood wounds, generational trauma, the chakra system, plant medicine, Tantric philosophy, and why so many grown adults are still operating with an eight year old's emotional toolkit. At the center of it all is a love story. A real one. A man named Seymour who was brilliant, quietly charming, and a prisoner of wounds he didn't know he was still carrying. A woman in the middle of her own becoming who thought she was just dating and ended up in the most profound classroom of her life. This book is the map she built from that experience. From the dating field through the blockades and the wounds, through the chakras and the sacred body, all the way to the other side where Tantric lovemaking sessions last twelve hours, orgasm is not a moment but a sustained state, and two people who have actually done the work discover what connection was always supposed to feel like. If you are tired of the same old patterns producing the same old outcomes, this book is for you. So, buckle in buttercup. Let's go for a ride.

Ten years after escaping a life of servitude behind the Veil, Wren is dragged back into the shimmering, cruel world of the fae. Her captor is Fionn, a silver-tongued bastard prince from her past who remembers the magic in her blood better than she does herself. Fionn is crafting a masterpiece of manipulation to usurp the throne, and he needs Wren’s rare, touch-based mind-reading to harvest the secrets of his treacherous brothers. Forced into a secret coven of gifted women, Wren must master forgotten, ancient magic to survive a world where every smile is a snare. Caught between her hatred for the monsters who stole her life and a growing, dangerous desire for the prince who promises to change everything, Wren must decide if she is Fionn’s greatest weapon, his equal partner, or merely the latest sacrifice in his climb to the crown.  *For fans of ACOTAR and The Cruel Prince.*

Sportswriter Bish Weatherly writes the story of Harry "Cotton" Purcell, the most talented ball player who never made the majors, and Grace, the wife who followed him across Prohibition-era America. Spring 1922, Indianapolis. Bish has been in love with Grace since he before he introduced her to Harry years earlier. Now, with Harry at spring training and Grace pregnant and alone in a new city, Bish positions himself as the reliable friend—helping her find housing, buying gifts, being there when Harry isn't. Harry, son of ruined Alabama aristocracy, hits like Babe Ruth but can't control his "surly disposition." Each success fuels his conviction he deserves the major leagues; each setback confirms he's been cheated. As his career spirals through brilliant performances and self-destructive collapses, Bish documents it all on the pages of the newspaper while growing dangerously close to Grace. The crisis comes in Nashville, 1925. Harry is hitting .357 alongside Lou Gehrig. Gehrig goes to the Yankees. Harry doesn't. When Grace—exhausted and desperate—finally offers Bish the love he's claimed to want for years, he discovers things about himself that he didn't want to know. Decades later, Bish lives on, telling himself he did the right thing—until writing the story reveals he was never the man he pretended to be. *The Great Gatsby* meets *Remains of the Day*, set in 1920s minor league baseball.

In a world of gaslit opulence and rigid etiquette, Blythe is a haunting anomaly—a brilliant spiritualist whose soul is trapped between life and death within an automaton body. Her only link to the living is Tarn “Madcap” Carrigan, a sorcerer-alchemist extraordinaire whose penchant for scandal is always one bad day away from another fatal mystery. With otherworldly secrets and new magic to discover, Blythe and Tarn are bound by an inseparable partnership.

This was not the vacation Rachel had bargained for. 10 years ago when the KPop group Hydra debuted, Park MinJae saw a girl leave her spot in line to help someone. Over the years since then he's seen her on every concert tour, but he's never had the chance to get to know her, until now. 3 years ago Rachel ran away to Korea, after her fiance swapped her for her cousin. Now, on a work vacation, she has to return for her mom's 50th birthday. Upon arrival in Chicago, she discovers her Kpop celebrity crush being mobbed by fans. After assisting with a timely escape, she invites him to go with her planning to give him a normal vacation.  But why does all the attention he's giving her feel like more than just appreciation for rescuing him? As things heat up with her family situation, Rachel tries to keep MinJae out of the drama. But MinJae is Korean, and Koreans are good with drama.

On a fictional Greek island, Anastasia Livanitis solves murders and other crimes with her ghostly sidekicks, and her journalist best friend, Nikos.

“Your lips have a flavor reminiscent of mango.” “Wait, what?! How do you even know that?” “Isn't it obvious?. While you were sleeping, I—”   Dove is fed up with playing the role of the Damsel in Distress. Now that she has the chance to pick a mentor, her dreams feel much closer than ever.   Yet, she’s at a loss for words when the very essence of the night, draped in blue, suddenly decides to choose her.