9523 Book(s) Related to synopsis of the first day of spring: a novel

For three years, I lived like a bird trapped in the gilded cage of Mafia don Victor Russo. Beneath every kiss and calculated caress, I bided my time. I had grown to love him, lost in the warmth of his affection.

But when I finally learned I was nothing more than a stand-in for his beloved Elaina, I struck back. I drained eighty million dollars from his accounts and fled to Europe. There, I chased down every lead I had uncovered and built a security empire of my own.

I never imagined a deadly conspiracy would drag me back to New York — and straight back to Victor. Revenge is within my grasp, yet that reckless, all-consuming love still lingers. And I don’t know which path to choose.

Everyone in the Night Realm knew that my husband, the Vampire Lord Valerius, suffered from a blood curse that fiercely repelled the opposite sex.

Any skin-to-skin contact with a woman would cause his flesh to fester and trigger a soul-shattering backlash.

That included me.

In our century together, we never shared a single embrace.

On the day we forged our Blood Pact, I tried to touch him, only to be violently thrown back, coughing up blood upon impact.

That was until vampire hunters set our ancestral castle ablaze. Pinned beneath broken timber, I reached out to him for help on pure instinct.

Valerius dodged my hand. Instead, he turned and gathered that terrified little human girl, Genevieve, into his arms, comforting her with unwonted tenderness:

"Don't be afraid. I'll get you out of here."

His body showed not a single sign of rejection.

It turns out that a so-called deadly blood curse automatically breaks in the presence of true love.

Since my century of pathetic groveling had only ever moved myself, I decided I no longer wanted this Blood Pact.

To celebrate his startup's funding, my boyfriend Liam forced me to eat a cake baked by his female best friend, Mia.

I immediately smelled peanuts. He knew I was deathly allergic, but he pressured me to take a bite anyway.

When the reaction hit—my throat closing, hives burning my skin—I reached for my EpiPen.

Mia snatched it first.

She turned my only lifeline into a party trick, tossing it in the air while the room cheered.

I grabbed Liam's arm, gasping for air.

"Still pulling this stunt?" he sneered, jerking out of my grip. "Faking an attack over a little jealousy? Then fucking die."

No one believed me. No one helped.

Pulling out my phone with trembling and numb fingers, I sent a final text to my brother before everything went completely dark.

I am a Kitsune exiled from the East. Every twenty years, I must consume a soul soaked in pure sin to grow a new tail and survive.
With only ten days left to live, I was desperate. Then I met Julian. He gently paid off my crushing debts with a smile so warm, I almost thought I’d met an angel.
Until he leaned in close. Beneath his expensive woodsy cologne, I caught the heavy, undeniable stench of fresh women's blood.
I lowered my head, hiding the sudden thrill in my eyes.
I had finally found my monster.

I grew up believing Elina was the perfect daughter… until the witch ripped open my memories.

Now everyone sees what I lived through: the staged kindness, the fake innocence, the way she ruined me while smiling like a saint.
And the worst part?
They believed her. Every time.

Dragged into a dungeon, forced to relive the truth, I’m done playing the “grateful stray.”
If they want the real story, I’ll show them every wound they ignored—

And when it’s over, they won’t see me as the broken one anymore.

I was vacationing in Miami with my mother when my husband’s female right-hand woman sent me a photo out of the blue. In the picture lay an elderly woman stripped half-naked, her body covered in fresh blood, paired with a cocky voice memo.
The audio blared Gina’s arrogant tone:
[Cecilia, keep your greedy, miserly mother in check!]
[How dare she sneak into the mansion Don Vito just bought for his own mother to mooch off him? She’s got zero shame!]
[I spared her a breath. No need to thank me.]
I froze on the spot and glanced up.
My mother was sitting right across from me, safe and sound.
I zoomed in on the photo without delay, and my heart dropped straight to my stomach.
That woman sprawled on the pavement was my mother-in-law!
I immediately dialed Gina’s number. “Gina, have you lost your mind? That’s Vito’s mother!”
Gina’s tone remained utterly dismissive. “Come on! Vito made it clear. Your mother’s just your mother, his mother’s his own. He’s never once considered your side of the family his real kin.”

He divorced me for a girl who reminded him of who I used to be.

For five years, I played the perfect wife.

I traded my motorcycle for a luxury car, my camera for boardroom meetings, and my freedom for the suffocating rules of his old-money world.

I changed everything about myself to make him happy.

But when he looked at me, all he saw was a cold, calculating socialite.

He told me he missed the girl who used to ride through the desert with him at 2 AM.

He forgot that he was the one who made me sell my bike.

I didn’t fight when he handed me the divorce papers.

I just asked for the car and the lake house, then quietly signed my name.

He thought I was being greedy.

He didn’t realize that when I walked out the door, I was also taking the copyrights to his company’s billion-dollar project and the shares I had been quietly buying for years.

He got the girl who looked like the old me.

But I walked away with everything.

I got paid to test-sleep an heiress's fiancé.
One problem: he's my boss.
Bigger problem: I've been catfishing him online for six months—as his fiancée.
Now I'm pregnant. And he just called my real name.

The Queen of Blades, Rika dies, hoping for a better life for the remaining survivers leaving a ruined world and she regrets not living a long happy and full life before her death. She awakes as a newborn in a strange but peaceful environment, in the same world of the novel Dreaming Kiss. Rika is reborn as Ulrika Vincent and realizes that she's got a scumbag of a Prince to cut out of her new life. And she wants to save her favorite character, Grand Duke Aric Solheim and what better way to do that than have a one night stand with him and get pregnant by him!

Sophia Johnson, a dedicated reporter, finds herself entangled in a passionate and complex love triangle. It all begins at an ex-CEO's retirement party, where she encounters Harry Stone, the irresistible billionaire heir and CEO of the company. What starts as a magnetic attraction soon evolves into a risky proposal.

Desperate to hold onto his CEO position, Harry suggests an audacious plan to Sophia: she should pretend to be his fiancée for five months, and in return, he offers her a substantial financial reward. Sophia, burdened by crushing student loan debts and the financial struggles of her family, reluctantly agrees. What she doesn't anticipate is the emotional rollercoaster this contract engagement will become.

As the charade unfolds, Sophia falls deeply in love with Harry, only to have her heart shattered when he ends their arrangement to pursue what he believes is his ideal partner. Despite being compensated for her role, Sophia carries a heart-wrenching secret—one she only discovers months after leaving the company: she is carrying Harry's child. The tumultuous nature of their contract engagement makes her hesitant to return to him.

Amid a whirlwind of love, desire, secrets, and betrayal, Sophia grapples with her feelings and the life-changing consequences of her decisions. Will Harry ever come to realize he has a child with Sophia, and will Sophia emerge from this web of deceit and passion with her heart and future intact?

She just wanted to start over.

After a childhood marked by trauma and invisible scars, Isabella Monteiro decided to live in silence, hiding her pain behind a charming smile.

But fate has never been kind.

Caught between two completely opposite worlds, Isabella finds herself at the center of a war for her heart.

On one side, Alexander Carter, the perfect CEO—sophisticated, polite, a man who seems to have stepped out of a dream. He protects her, respects her, and awakens in her the feeling of finally being safe.

On the other, Dante Navarro, a dangerous drug dealer with a gaze that can burn to the soul. Brutal, intense, and with an obsession that can destroy her... or free her.

Between Alexander's heaven and Dante's shadows, Isabella will discover that love can be her salvation... or her ruin.

In my past life, my rival and I were both top-tier Wall Street tycoons. I gave up my entire fortune for my fiancée, only to be set up by her and her lowly bodyguard, dying a miserable death in a pool of blood.

Reborn on the night of our engagement bidding, she sat on her high horse, demanding I hand over my hundred-billion-dollar empire.

All of New York was waiting for me to wag my tail like a good dog and sign the papers just to win her over.

But what she didn't know was...

The prestigious family she was so proud of was nothing but a rotting shell. The moment I cut off the secret cash flow keeping them afloat, her so-called "true love" wouldn't survive a single day in this vanity fair.

She thought she was choosing a pure, noble romance. In reality, she just bought a one-way ticket to hell.

Manhattan City Hall, ten minutes before the marriage certificate is issued.
I looked at the prenuptial agreement, what flashed through my mind was not a sweet future, but the tragic ending of my past life—prison bars, fabricated evidence, and my wife Selena's cold face in court.
me to hell without hesitation .
Having been reborn, this time I will not be anyone's stepping stone again.
The real game only began the moment the agreement was torn up.

My name is Leo Carson, I am eighteen years old, and I am dying.
Three years ago, my uncle Thomas stole the 500,000 Aurora Coins and the Awakening Potion that my parents left me with a fake psychiatric evaluation report, and threw me into the Rust Zone to die.
For the past three years, I have worked as a child laborer in a chemical plant, working sixteen hours a day and being treated like a dog.
Until Hela, the goddess of death, appeared and gave me the Book of Judgment . As long as I write down the other person's name and manner of death, they will die.
Now, those who have wronged me, it's time for you to pay your debts.

I was the hottest A-list actress in Hollywood, until a few deepfaked videos of me "abusing assistants" and malicious photos of my "rotting face" dragged me straight to hell.
In just one month, I became a monster despised by the entire internet.
Facing tens of thousands of death threats telling me to "die with a rotting face."
They wanted me to die crying. I didn't. Instead, I decided to express my deepest gratitude to the bullies who ruined my life.
And my "thank you" is going to cost a fortune.
But I never imagined the real monster wasn't hiding behind a screen—he was holding the syringe.

I used to think Jude was my one way out, my only salvation when my life fell straight into hell.
He pulled strings to get my mom into emergency surgery and helped me handle my dad’s funeral. He even promised he’d give me a home.
I believed him. So I married him. And for eight years, I let him take my blood every single month; he said it was for “routine health monitoring.”—Eight years, 9,999 milliliters.
Until that night, when I heard him with my own ears, talking to his friend:
“Lily’s blood type is rare. Lynn and her mom? They’re just ready-made blood banks.”
He didn’t marry me out of love. He married me to keep a “living blood bag” in hand.
I rested a hand on my still-flat belly and I laughed.
So this was what our marriage really was. From start to finish, it was a slaughter dressed up as love.
Fine. Then let’s see when it was time for the sacrifice, who ended up on the altar.

"Call me brother," he whispered, pressing me against the wall, his erection hard against my stomach.
For twelve years, we played this dangerous game. By day, I was his obedient foster sister. By night, I was his obsession.
He never went all the way—saving me for marriage, he claimed—but he did everything else. His fingers knew every wet corner of my body. His mouth had tasted my pleasure a thousand times. He groomed me to be the perfect toy for his bed.
"You're mine, Julie. Only mine."
But then Lena came back.
Suddenly, the bedroom door was locked. Suddenly, I heard her screams of pleasure instead of mine.
He didn't touch me anymore. He looked at me with cold, dead eyes and said, "You're just a sister. Stop acting like a jealous lover."
He threw away twelve years of intimacy for a fresh body.
I packed my bags, leaving behind the lingerie he bought me, the toys we used.
When he finally realized Lena was a fake, he came running back, eyes wild, wanting to claim what he thought was still his property.
"Spread your legs for me, Julie," he begged, reaching for me.
I slapped his hand away. "Go fuck your sister, Daniel. I'm done."

My wife had an affair.
Not only that, she casually indulged her lover over the phone, allowing him to crush the bones of my right hand, known as the "Hand of God," right in front of our six-year-old child, with a stomp of his shoe. I could never hold a tool again.
Natalie thought I was just a poor, pathetic loser earning a dead-end salary, so she brazenly let her gigolo trample all over me.
But what she had no idea of was that her proud identity as a transnational female CEO was merely a toy casually tossed to her by the top old-money family I belong to in New York.
When dozens of bulletproof armored vehicles smashed through the gates and my father, the patriarch, descended like the god of death, her arrogant self finally crumbled like a stray dog.
She screamed and jumped into the icy, bone-chilling lake to retrieve the diamond ring I had discarded, wailing and begging to chop off her own hand to compensate me.
But I just held the stunning British Duchess in my arms, watching coldly as she fell into an abyss of eternal damnation.
This love, tainted with shit, whoever wants it can have it!

Everyone says I'm lucky— a noble lady from the Miller family, doors open for me when I walk out, heads bow when I come home.
But deep down, I know the truth. I live like a “spare”: covering for my father’s mistakes, taking the fall for my stepsister.
Even the bodyguard I thought I could rely on is only here for Emma.
I caught him using Emma's photo to relieve himself, heard his Underboss mock him for acting as a bodyguard to me, just to make Emma feel his heart.
He was my bodyguard, yet when danger struck, he shielded Emma.
When I lashed out at him, punishing him for Emma’s faults, he secretly returned the favor, giving me ninety-nine lashes in retaliation.
Finally, I agreed to marry into the Jones Family and became the “vegetative Don’s” wife.
I took the money, moved to Manhattan, and became the most dignified Mrs. Jones: keeping watch over a mute husband, at least no longer having to worry about a knife in my heart.

(DAILY UPDATING)
Adriana is the forgotten daughter of the Alpha of the Red Moon Pack. Her father barely acknowledges her, her sister despises her, and the mate she loved for five years chose power over her—by sleeping with that very sister.

But Adriana has a secret.

A rare white wolf. A power she’s been forced to hide.

When she unexpectedly crosses paths with the Lycan King, she doesn’t know he is her father’s greatest enemy… or her second-chance mate.

Elijah never planned to bond again. Betrayed once and now raising a silent son alone, he has no interest in love. But there’s something different about Adriana. Something powerful. Something his wolf refuses to ignore.

As tension between wolves and lycans rises, secrets begin to unravel and claiming her may mean starting a war.

This time, Adriana won’t be the weak daughter they overlooked.

Mara Vale has survived Moonspire Academy by staying quiet.

She is a treaty ward, a scholarship student, and the wolf everyone expects to fail. During the public Moon Rank rite, the Alpha Stone gives her no rank at all. The Council calls her defective. Her foster pack calls her unstable. Before nightfall, they order her wolf sealed before her first full shift.

Then Mara bleeds on the stone, and the stone cracks.

Her blood hears what powerful wolves have buried: broken Alpha commands, rotten pack oaths, and the erased scent of a mother she was never allowed to remember. The more they try to silence her, the more the old territory answers.

Kael Draven, heir to the strongest Alpha house, is ordered to stand against her. Protecting Mara could cost him his succession, his pack, and every future he was raised to inherit. But obeying means letting the girl his mark answers be sealed as nothing.

Mara does not want to be claimed. She wants her wolf alive.

With a disgraced Luna candidate, a rival pack commander, and a healer hiding survivor scars, Mara must walk into the rites built to erase girls like her and make the Pack smell the truth.

They marked her omega.

The Moon called her heir.

Five mates rejected Seraphina Vale for being wolfless, plus-sized, and “defective.”

Then the dying Lycan King offered her a one-year contract marriage.

He needs her to survive.

She needs his power to reclaim the life everyone stole from her.

But when ancient secrets awaken, Seraphina discovers she isn't wolfless at all.

She's something the supernatural world thought had gone extinct.

And the woman everyone rejected may be the only one capable of saving their king.

In an elite suburb of New York City, girls are dying. That doesn’t happen in Greenvale, with its immaculate lawns, exclusive yacht clubs and multi-million dollar mansions. But behind its perfect façade, its trimmed hedges and luxury cars, a darkness lies. Girls, dependent on Adderall, outmaneuver each other to get into top colleges, while the mothers’ need to live vicariously only makes it worse. Bella DeFranco is one of the Bronx’s top SVU detectives. At only 37, she disarms everyone with her stunning good looks, yet she is as tough as most men—and a lot smarter, too. Yet when is summoned to Greenvale, she finds herself getting lost in a case that even she can’t comprehend. She stumbles into a land of secrets, a place where husbands hide their pasts from their wives, where friends are not what they seem, and where no one wants to know too much. As she digs deeper into layers of suburban dysfunction, she comes to learn that, behind all the fake smiles, there is a subtle violence--rivaling even her crime-ridden streets of the Bronx. With a killer on the loose, time running out, and a new partner who never recovered from his washed-up alcoholic days, the odds are stacked against Bella. She is determined, though, to save these girls, whatever the cost. Yet as she gets close, the depth of psychosis she discovers shocks even her….

Born in the slums, Wendy was heartlessly dumped by her self made boyfriend.
"You're not good enough for me."
She sneered, smashed his Ferrari, then climbed into a limited edition hypercar and drove away.
What her ex never knew was that the "burden" he abandoned was the one who made him successful.
Then her birth mother, who had abandoned her years ago, suddenly returned and demanded that Wendy go home and marry in place of her disabled sister.
Wendy smiled.
"Fine. If you all want me back so badly, I'll come home. And I'll repay every single one of you."

In the kingdom of the Alpha King, Janelle, a trusted servant, conceals a burning desire for revenge against her parents' killers. When she discovers her true mate is the prince, her world is thrown into turmoil. Torn between love and vengeance, Janelle's quest for justice takes a dangerous turn as secrets unravel and betrayal lurks at every corner. Will she choose love or succumb to the darkness of her past?

The female presidential candidate slipped a real-time tracker into my bag, then handed me the divorce papers.

She still thought I would coddle her like I had for the past five years and stay by her side.

"Fine." I signed the papers and left.

She started tracking me, driving away any women around me, showing up at my house in the middle of the night begging me to come back.

But... weren't you the one who wanted the divorce?

She was my best friend — until she used a soul-swapping potion to steal my body, my face, and my man.
In my past life, I was trapped inside her fat, ugly shell and drowned in the freezing depths of the sea.
Reborn on the day before the swap, I didn't expose her.
I smiled and drank the tea.
After she left, I picked up a knife and carved two deep gashes across my own face.
Then I threw myself from the second floor.
The next morning she woke up giddy with excitement. The moment she looked in the mirror, her screams echoed through the entire hospital.
Meanwhile, I opened my eyes in her Mafia Godfather father's estate — and walked straight into the family council.
She wanted my beauty? She could have it.
The power she was desperate to throw away? I'll take it.

I was the most revered pureblood Light heir.

In my past life, I married the Supreme Holy Knight, Arthur, only to give birth to an Ash-blood cub—the lowest of all.

In a rage, he incinerated my baby alive. He then dragged my bleeding, postpartum body into a saltwater dungeon to drain my magic, leaving me to be devoured by venomous insects.

Meanwhile, my lowly Ash-blood sister miraculously birthed a Light-blood cub. Stepping on my corpse, she became the realm's new ruler.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at our Mate-Selection Ceremony. Arthur publicly rejected me and chose my sister.

Seeing his smug, calculating smirk, I knew immediately: he had been reborn, too.

But how could a parasitic knight, who survived entirely by draining his wife's magic to fake a holy bloodline, ever father a supreme dragon?

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my Alpha husband missed the candlelit dinner for the seventh time.
He rushed off to rescue an Omega surrounded by vampires, leaving me alone in the villa.
That same night, a jarring photo spread through the pack.
Damien, covered in blood, held Rose tightly in his arms, his lips pressed against her forehead.
Everyone was waiting for me to be jealous, to rage.
But I didn’t scream or argue like I used to.
Instead, I poured out his favorite champagne, closed my eyes calmly, and prayed to the Moon Goddess.
“You once said I have a destined mate.”
“If he will make me strong and free me from this wretched marriage, let him come for me in seven days.”

"Brian, look again. Really look." Emma’s voice trembled as she shoved the broken piece of wood into his chest. Her hands were shaking—knuckles scraped raw, eyes burning with a grief too deep to contain. “Whose name do you see on that grave?”
Brian kicked over the rusted chair beside him, his movements sharp, unhinged. His bloodshot eyes flared with irritation.
“Jesus, Emma! Are we still on this? You’re acting like some twisted ghost hunter. Can’t you just let it go? She was just a girl—eighteen, for God’s sake!”
A bitter laugh slipped from her lips, hollow and soaked in pain. Her voice cracked as she took a slow, deliberate step toward him.
“She wasn’t just a girl.” She stared him down, tears spilling over as her chest rose and fell with every breath of fury. “She was our daughter. And you—” her voice broke into a whisper, “you let her die like trash. You threw Elara away like she meant nothing.”

In a brutal betrayal, champion racer Vivian's life is destroyed by the man she loves. John, her partner and team owner, sabotages her car, causing a crash that kills their unborn child and leaves her gravely injured. He then coldly abandons her to celebrate with his true lover, Sharon—the rival he secretly engineered the accident for. As Vivian confronts the loss of her child and career, her suffering is magnified by the couple's relentless cruelty, culminating in John allowing Sharon to permanently cripple her legs. Emotionally and physically shattered, and forced into a humiliating existence, Vivian uncovers the full extent of their conspiracy. With every hope extinguished, she orchestrates a final, desperate escape from her nightmare, leaving a life of vengeance and sorrow behind.

“Don’t worry. She can’t see a thing.”

The familiar male voice came from behind the half-open door.

“So she wouldn’t know even if I kissed you right now?”

A woman laughed softly and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Only a few steps away, Rosalie watched the man she had loved for years lower his head and kiss another woman.

What they didn’t know was that her sight had returned.

The betrayal wasn’t even the cruelest part. When Rosalie checked their records, she discovered that the marriage she believed was real had never been legally registered. The man who had promised to protect her forever had used her blindness to cheat right in front of her—and now he planned to marry another woman and steal everything that should have belonged to Rosalie.

If he could give her a fake marriage, she could come back with a real husband.

So Rosalie married Cassian Thackeray.

The moment they signed the papers, she recognized him.

He was the firefighter who had once carried her out of a burning building—the mysterious man she had been searching for ever since.

But Rosalie said nothing.

Cassian believed he had married a fallen heiress who simply needed a legal husband. Rosalie believed he was nothing more than a dangerous, emotionally untouchable fire chief.

Their rules were simple: separate bedrooms, separate lives, and absolutely no falling in love.

But Cassian was always there when someone tried to humiliate her, his arm locking possessively around her waist.

“I’m her husband,” he warned. “Who gave you permission to touch her?”

And when Rosalie treated his injuries late at night, her fingers traced the hard planes of his bare, heated chest. It was supposed to be medical. Nothing more.

Until he trapped her between his arms, their mouths barely an inch apart.

“Your hands are shaking,” he murmured.

“It’s a professional response.”

“Is that so?” His palm slowly closed around the back of her neck, his voice dropping lower. “Then why is your heart beating so fast?”

Again and again, they tested the boundaries. Again and again, they almost kissed—only to stop at the final inch.

Then Cassian came home before dawn, smelling of smoke and cold rain, and found the lamp she had left burning and the milk she had kept warm for him.

“You waited for me all night.”

“I forgot to turn off the light.”

Cassian stared at her, his thumb pressed against the frantic pulse in her wrist.

“Rosalie, your body is much more honest than your mouth.”

She was beginning to forget that their marriage was only a contract. She was beginning to forget that she had married him merely to reclaim everything stolen from her.

But then Cassian’s signature appeared on confidential corporate documents.

And Lucian Thackeray—the mysterious billionaire heir who never showed his face in public—had the same unforgettable gray-blue eyes as her husband.

As Rosalie begins digging into the man sleeping just one room away, she realizes Cassian has never told her who he truly is.

And their marriage may never have been an accident.

Iris Bellweather only wants a quiet life at Moonvale Academy and a tiny shop where she can repair broken magical objects. Unfortunately, her chaotic magic has other plans.

After accidentally opening a forbidden magic shop, Iris catches the attention of a mysterious fae prince, becomes the target of jealous classmates who repeatedly frame and isolate her, and somehow bonds with a legendary wolf-dragon.

Then a magical accident sends her into the hidden fairy realm, where she meets a charming elven prince and discovers that fairies, elves, fae, witches, and magical beasts are all being threatened by an ancient evil.

Between academy competitions, mischievous fairies, jealous rivals, magical disasters, two princes, and a world-saving beast tournament, Iris must discover the true power of her strange Mending Magic.

She came to the academy to learn magic.

She never expected to open a magic shop, steal a fae prince’s heart, make an elf prince her best friend, and accidentally save the magical world.

“Stay away from the team, Mira.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be.”
Mira Delgado was supposed to be a basketball player.
Until one humiliating fall during her first tournament earned her the cruel nickname “Whale Girl” and destroyed the dream she had worked so hard for. Now she hides behind her glasses, her notebook, and the cheerleading squad, determined to stay invisible.
But Mira has never stopped being an athlete.
She sees patterns other people miss. And when three hockey players collapse under suspicious circumstances, she begins digging—only to uncover evidence that someone has been drugging the team.
Damon Reyes is Westbrook’s star hockey captain, golden boy, and future NHL draft pick. He also happens to be the boy who humiliated Mira when she needed him most.
They can't stand each other.
Until a scandal threatens Damon’s career and Mira’s journalism program, forcing them into a fake relationship.
The rules are: no feelings, no sleeping together, no kissing unless cameras are watching, and no one can know the truth.
Simple right?
But Damon soon discovers something Mira has been hiding.
The girl everyone calls “Whale Girl” can play basketball—and she may be far better than anyone ever gave her credit for.
As Mira fights to reclaim the sport she was forced to abandon, Damon begins seeing the girl beneath the glasses: stubborn, fearless, fiercely competitive, and unwilling to stay down.
But while Mira fights for her place on the court, someone is fighting to keep her off it.
Someone is drugging the players.
Someone is leaking team secrets.
And the closer Mira and Damon get to the truth, the more dangerous the game becomes.
Because this time, Mira isn't just fighting to save Damon’s career.
She's fighting to prove she belongs.

To help my girlfriend climb the ranks, I handed over my life's research and propelled her into the inner circle of power.

Her repayment? To secure her status, she threw my thirteen-year-old sister outside the city gates to feed the zombies.

When I uncovered the truth, she showed zero remorse. Instead, she knocked me out herself, tossing me into a metal transport truck to serve as zombie rations.

She thought dead men tell no tales.

What she didn’t know was that the moment the zombies bit me, I swallowed my newly developed serum.

When I opened my eyes again, I hadn't lost my mind. Instead, I had become the Zombie King, commanding an endless horde of the infected!

Half a year later, Eden City’s energy is depleted, and the city is besieged by a massive army.

Dressed to the nines, my girlfriend steps out of the city to beg and negotiate with the rumored "Zombie Boss of the Wasteland."

Sitting across the negotiation table, looking at her hypocritical face, I slowly take off my gas mask...

My wife and my best friend had an affair for sixteen years, and I raised their illegitimate child for sixteen years.
It wasn't until Brody suddenly became rich that they dropped their pretense and kicked me out like trash.
Ironically, a month later, extreme cold struck, and Brody's vast fortune became worthless, leaving the three of them huddled in their apartment waiting to die.
I took them in because I felt sorry for them.
When the food ran out, they tied me to the basement, cut off pieces of my flesh, and roasted and ate them.
Reborn, in this life, I will make them kneel and beg for death.

"Your credit code has been wiped to zero. You are worse than a cyber-dog now."

I fought bloody battles in the Abyss for the Federation for three years, only for my wife to be framed by my adjutant, her left arm shattered, and kicked into a wasteland scavenger town like a dead dog.

Three years later, I returned from the bloodbath. What awaited me was not a medal of honor, but the megacorp's indiscriminate bombing order aimed at my wife.

High up in Cloud City, the megacorp executives raised their wine glasses and sneered: "Burn it all to ashes, along with that crippled woman!"

They seemed to have forgotten that I am the Grand Marshal of the Federation, and an absolute war maniac.

Since the law means nothing, I will use the purest firepower to drag their massive fleet and the entire megacorp straight down to hell!

"Ms. Hart, I've filed to dissolve our match. I expect your cooperation."

Major General Adrian Voss stared at me. Spotless uniform. Unblinking, amber slit-pupils. He was an Alpha snake shifter, and an eighty-percent genetic match to the body I now occupied.

Beside him, his childhood sweetheart, Serena Vale, watched me eagerly. She was waiting for my hysterical, tearful breakdown.

I knew the script. I'd just woken up inside the novel Second Chance with the General as Evelyn Hart, the doomed villainess. Serena was the reborn heroine here to take her man back. If I fought for this engagement, I'd be disowned and eventually die miserably in a ditch.

A brutal fate. But as Adrian waited for my answer, I wasn't heartbroken. I was paralyzed by one horrifying detail:

Snake shifters courted their mates in their beast forms.

Holy crap! I was absolutely terrified of snakes!

I chose Adrian Cole for a strategic marriage because he understood boundaries.

For three years, he never gave me a reason to regret it.

Then his new assistant fed him from her fork, took my seat in his car, and appeared on his arm at a charity gala while society reporters called them a perfect match.

I gave my husband three chances to remember that I was his equal. He used every one—then admitted he had only wanted to teach me how a proper wife should behave.

Adrian thought our families' business alliance would keep me beside him.

He forgot that I ran Shaw Group before I ever became Mrs. Cole, and I had never needed a marriage badly enough to be trained by one.

I was forced by my father to fulfill an arranged engagement with an Alpha I'd never met face-to-face. Pushing open the jewelry store door, I found my fiancé Kane spoiling his childhood sweetheart Briar, who was trying to snatch my mother’s ring. "Security! Get this stray out of here!" Briar screamed, pointing at me. When I revealed my identity, Kane sneered coldly: "What bullshit pact? I would never marry a woman like you." Briar snatched the ring and threw water at my face: "Kneel down and beg me to give it back!" When I fought back, Kane exploded in rage: "How dare you touch my woman? Hold her down!" Four warriors pinned me down as Briar laughed cruelly: "Let everyone see this delusional bitch who doesn't know her place!" They stepped on my hand while Kane watched coldly, even urging her on: "Hurry up, let her learn her lesson." Just as she was about to chop off my finger with a knife, the door suddenly burst open—"Do you have any idea whose daughter you're humiliating?"

I am the worst "loser" in London's underground boxing ring, getting beaten bloody in every fight.
Nobody knows that I was once a top agent who struck fear into the hearts of the entire CIA—"Death" Marcus Kane.
Seven years ago, I was falsely accused of treason and forced to live in anonymity, making a living by throwing fights.
I just want to see my daughter live one more day, even if it means being humiliated like a dog in the boxing ring.
Until that day, I watched with my own eyes as my enemy poured my daughter's life-saving medicine on the ground and forced my wife to marry someone else.
I picked up that satellite phone that had been gathering dust for seven years...

I'm the youngest lead surgeon in our hospital's cardiothoracic department. My fiancé, Adrian Wexford, runs the whole department.

His first love, Bella Hartley, is a mediocre surgeon, but she wants to take over the surgery that should be mine before her promotion review.

In my last life, I fought for it. I told them she didn't have the skill to handle it alone, that it was gambling with a patient's life. I threatened to quit and saved the patient.

But Bella couldn't handle the gossip going around the department. She got depressed and jumped off the hospital roof.

Adrian never said a word about it. He kept treating me the same, picked out wedding rings with me, smiled and told me we'd go on our honeymoon right after the wedding.

I thought he'd let it go.

Then on our wedding day, one glass of wine in, I woke up in a freezing basement, strapped down to an operating table.

He held a scalpel and cut into me, inch by inch, his eyes bloodshot.

"If you hadn't fought so hard for that surgery, Bella wouldn't have jumped. You owe her. Pay with your life."

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the afternoon he first suggested giving Bella the surgery.

This time, I didn't argue. I just smiled. "Sure. Let Bella take the lead on this one."

They have no idea that next Tuesday, the Chief of Surgery is bringing the board and a visiting specialist to observe, unannounced.

We'll see how they explain this one.

In my previous life, my assistant—whom I treated like a little sister—personally handed me a cup of poisoned honey lemon water that destroyed my career.

The man I loved with all my heart ran off with every penny I had.

I died like a stray dog on the streets, with no one to claim my body.

Meanwhile, those two backstabbers took my money, sang my songs, and basked in the spotlight while thousands of fans cheered them on.

I died with so much resentment in my heart.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at that exact moment—when my assistant was handing me that poisoned honey lemon water.

This time, I was determined to make them pay the price!

At the Moonshadow Council, my fiancé knelt before the throne with his new lover and asked permission to marry her—while keeping me as his nameless second mate.

He mocked me for having no parents and no family, claiming that if I left the Silver Fir Pack, I would not even have a place to sleep.

I removed my engagement ring and looked toward the throne. No one knew that the Lycan King seated above us was my own brother—the brother who had entered this world with me.

And my brother had already set down his goblet.

“Are you certain you want to treat her this way?”

My wife and my best friend had been sleeping together behind my back for a long time. Once the apocalypse hit, they completely dropped the act. While I was still stressing over how we would survive, they threw me straight into a zombie horde—just to buy themselves a few seconds to escape.
Given a second chance at life, I chose to report the impending zombie outbreak to the government, securing my place as a top-tier protected asset for the nation.
But what I didn't expect was... my wife and best friend were reborn too.

Harper spent ten years as Joel's perfect girlfriend... until he dumped her to boost his brand. Now Joel's getting married, and Harper's crashing his wedding on the arm of Crew Lawson, the one player Joel hates most. It's supposed to be fake: three months of PR revenge. But Crew's hiding a dangerous addiction, Harper's hiding real feelings, and Joel's hiding the truth about why he really left. Some fake relationships burn too hot to stay pretending.

Every July, my husband left for a business trip to France—so for seven full years of marriage, we never once got to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
This time, I flew all the way to France to surprise him, and mid-flight, I stumbled across a social media post.
My dream girl finally agreed to be with me. How do I make the frumpy, worn-out wife back home file for divorce on her own?
The OP poured out his grievances in the comment section:
When my dream girl suddenly moved abroad, I married her former best friend to keep me company through the hard times, just so I wouldn’t lose touch with her completely.
Now she’s finally said yes to being with me, and I’ve made enough to give her the lavish, privileged life she deserves.
I want my wife to find out about my affair herself so I can get a clean divorce without a fight, but she’s so painfully oblivious. I’ve come home reeking of my dream girl’s perfume on purpose, and every single July I fly here to France for our private time together, watching the lavender bloom in Provence with her. She never noticed a thing.
Perfume. July. France.
Those matching details made my fingers go numb. A deafening buzz exploded in my skull. A bone-deep chill washed over me, and I prayed with everything I had that it was all just a terrible coincidence.
Until I read the final line.
Just got a spending alert from her supplementary credit card—she bought a flight to France. I’m heading to pick up my dream girl now, might as well keep an eye out for her, just in case.
The plane touched down. When I stepped into the arrivals hall, I lifted my head almost instinctively.
There stood Shen Sinian, the man I hadn’t seen in two weeks, in a crisp, tailored suit, a bouquet of roses in his hand, locked in a passionate kiss with a woman with a stunning, willowy figure, her back to me.
He opened his eyes by chance, and through the crowd of travelers, his gaze locked directly with mine.

The dealership called to inform me that my Rolls-Royce Starlight Headliner had been replaced with a pink one and was ready for pickup.
I was bewildered. I hadn't driven that car in ages—why would anyone change the headliner without my knowledge?
I confronted my husband, who managed our garage, demanding an explanation.
"Honey, maybe they got their wires crossed. I'll swing by the dealership later and sort it out."
I wasn't about to waste my breath. Instead, I called my friend directly—she happened to own the dealership.
"William's having an affair. I'm going to catch him red-handed."

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone) CUL DE SAC (A Chloe Fine Mystery) is book #3 in a new psychological suspense series by bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has over 1,000 five-star reviews. FBI VICAP Special Agent Chloe Fine, 27, must immerse herself in a suburban world of cliques, gossip and lies, as she races to solve the murder of a seemingly picture-perfect wife and mother on the night of her 20th high school reunion.Old high school friends, now in their late 30s, have returned back to the same suburban town to raise their kids, and have resurrected the same cliques that sustained and divided them 20 years ago. As their 20th high school reunion brings back old memories, resentment, betrayals and secrets, it causes fresh pain a generation later. On the same night, their former queen bee is found murdered in her home.In this seemingly perfect, manicured town, the past haunts the present—and anyone and everyone is a suspect.Can Chloe Fine solve the murder—while wrestling with the demons of her own past, and the potential release from jail of her own father?An emotionally wrought psychological suspense with layered characters, small-town ambiance and heart-pounding suspense, CUL DE SAC is book #3 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #4 in the CHLOE FINE series will be available soon.