1878 Book(s) Related to carrie soto is back: a novel

Every time Mason tried to force me to back down, he would slam the divorce agreement onto the table.
Every time my parents wanted me to yield, they threatened to sever all ties with me.
What they wanted was simple: for me to give everything to my twin sister.
I once resisted, cried, and questioned them over and over—why was I always the one left hurt?
Until the doctor slid my medical test results in front of me, and said to me in a tone full of pity:
"The pancreatic cancer cells have metastasized. You only have one month left to live, maybe even less."
I had nothing left to care about. I was doomed no matter what, so they could do whatever they wanted with me.

I was the female warrior of the Silver Claw Pack, destined to be Beta.
Until the eve of the selection trials.
That was when they hit me with wolfsbane, then trapped me inside a fire they set on purpose. The flames took my face. Almost took my wolf.
I thought it was an accident. Right up until I heard my Alpha mate say to my mother:
"She just lost her looks. But Celia lost her confidence. She owed her that."
Turns out, my mother was the one who locked the door. My mate was the one who pushed me into the fire. So Celia could become Beta without me in the way.
Later, they trapped me in a second fire. They stood there and watched me burn.
They thought I was dead.
What they don't know is that I crawled back out of those flames.
Three years later, when I take my place on the throne as the strongest Beta alive, I'll make sure every single one of them understands.
Fire never destroyed me. It just burned away their last way out.

Ever since the day Roman pressed a gun to my head and condemned me as his parents' murderer, I became the most lowly prisoner in this estate.
 
He didn't kill me. Instead, he kept me in line using my dying mother's medical bills and my adopted sister, Callie, as leverage.
 
For three years, he paraded various women into the master bedroom, leaving me to change their tangled sheets; he ground my dignity into the dirt in front of his men, and I swallowed the humiliation in silence.
 
Until the day he wrapped his arm around a pregnant Callie, flaunting her in my face.

I finally broke down, falling to my knees at his feet:
 
"My mother is dying, and Callie is the only family I have left. I'm begging you—direct all your cruelty at me. Just let her go."
 
Roman merely scoffed. Twisting his hand into my hair, he dragged me all the way into the great hall.
 
There, my "terminally ill" mother stood holding a glass of expensive red wine, her face flushed and glowing with health as she smilingly stroked Callie's slightly rounded belly.
 
"Look—it was all a lie." Roman stared at me like I was trash. "Who told you to be so stubborn and refuse to confess? I dropped some spare change, and your mother willingly faked her illness for three years. And your sweet little sister? She calls me her husband in my bed every single day."
 
A brutal chill pierced my bones. I couldn't believe that the very blood relatives I had sacrificed my life to protect were the leeches draining me dry.
 
Roman slammed a Divorce Agreement onto the coffee table. Under the asset division column was an utterly humiliating number: $1.
 
"Callie is pregnant with the family's first-born heir. Be a good girl and sign it—this one dollar is your severance pay."
 
He was so absolutely certain that I would go completely insane at the sight of this pathetic dollar.

He assumed that even with a gun to my head, I would bawl and cling desperately to my title as the Don's wife.
 
But after a brief, dead silence, I signed my name.
 
Then, I picked up that one-dollar coin.
 
"You're right. Our last ten years together are worth exactly one dollar."
 
From this moment on, whether it was my bloodsucking family or the man I had loved for a decade...
 
We were completely, entirely done.

All because I was unaware that Sophia had followed me on the mission, leaving her stranded in the chaotic dockyard.
My husband, Dante, was furious. He ordered his bodyguards to throw me into a seafood transfer warehouse.
“Cool off in the cold storage. Maybe then you’ll understand how helpless Sophia felt trapped in that container.”
It was a refrigeration unit for seafood, kept at a constant zero degrees, the air thick with the smell of fish.
I pounded on the door, pleading for help, but only Dante’s icy voice came through the intercom:
“Stop the act. The temperature in there won’t kill you. Stay inside and reflect until you learn your lesson.”
He cut the internal communication.
The temperature in the cold room kept dropping—someone had switched on the deep-freeze mode!
Shivering uncontrollably, I beat against the door until my nails left bloody scratches on the wall.
In agony, I curled into a ball. My consciousness faded, and my body grew stiff.
On the third day, Dante finally remembered me while celebrating the takeover of new territory.
In a rare show of mercy, he decided to have someone let me out.
But what he didn’t know was that my heart had already stopped beating from hypothermia long before.

I retired for three years, restraining my edge, thinking compromise could bring peace.

But what I got in return was my sister's abduction, my family's estate seized, and my benefactor hanged from the city gates!

Even the Council turned a blind eye, mocking me as bottom-tier trash without even a shred of magic.

Since mortal reasoning won't work, then I'll shatter the rules of this world myself!

“The wedding will go on as planned.”
Darren sat in the dimly lit living room, his voice flat as if he were commenting on the weather. But the fabric of my dress was already wrinkled in my fists, my nails cutting crescents into my skin—because only hours ago, I had seen it with my own eyes.
The man with crippling OCD, who never let anyone touch his things, had casually lifted Paisley’s glass and taken a sip.
My wolf, Emily, snarled restlessly in my mind: “He’s betrayed us! Break the bond—call it off!”
But I clung to the last threads of hope, my gaze locked on the wedding ring at his finger—engraved with both our names. He once told me the ring was crafted with a strong magnet, which whenever we were near, they’d pull together. Proof, he said, of us being true Fate Mates.
Until the night of the Moon Ceremony.
I walked toward him in my white gown, only to catch the naked loathing in his eyes.
“The mate I longed for isn’t you. I regret this.”

A wild night six years ago cost her everything—her family, her home, and nearly her life. She fled with a secret, returning now with four children in tow: three healthy, brilliant boys, and a daughter desperately in need of a miracle.

The father? He's the ruthless CEO who dominates the corporate world, a man who has no idea he has a family. To get the DNA proof she needs, she must infiltrate his life. But he sees her as a cunning seductress, and his cruel fiancée—her own stepsister—is hell-bent on ruining her.

With time running out, her four little masterminds launch their own operation: "Operation: Claim Our Daddy." They're ready to go to war for their mom, but are they any match for the most powerful man they've ever met?

After a drunken one-night stand, I made the biggest mistake of my life—I slept with my boss, Alexander Brown. He's my father's business partner, a man who terrified me with just an icy stare.

I fled in a panic, but a resume I left behind led him to the wrong person—my cousin, Elodie. While I lived in fear and guilt, she seized the opportunity to take my place, accepting the marriage he offered out of a sense of responsibility.

What no one knew was that our reckless night had already sown its seed. I was pregnant.

Believing he was committed to her, I planned to secretly get an abortion and disappear from his world, even inventing a "fiancé" to fend off his growing suspicions.

But Alexander was no fool, and his sharp instincts began to tear through my web of lies.

He could never have imagined that the timid, overlooked intern he barely noticed was not only the woman from that passionate night, but also the mother of his child.

Betrayed and humiliated, I discovered my one-year marriage was a meticulously crafted lie. My husband, the man I gave my fortune and heart to, had legally married his manipulative adoptive sister, all while using me as a stepping stone to wealth and power. Cast aside like trash, I was left with nothing but a thirst for vengeance.

But they underestimated me.

I am no damsel in distress. I am the heiress they thought they had broken.

On the anniversary of her mother's death, Scarlett White was taken out of the treatment center. She begged Brandon Robinson to let her see her mother for just a moment.
He coldly smiled and said, "We're not going to the cemetery. You need to go to the hospital to donate a kidney to Elizabeth."
What she thought was love shattered in an instant. Scarlett looked up, tears streaming down her face, and said, "I'll donate the kidney, but I must get a divorce!"
He laughed in anger, "What you owe her can never be repaid in this lifetime!"

In the year 3000, magic and technology flourish side by side.
Wielders of magic are no longer myth… They’re real and revered.
“Joel,” a humble wizard living a quiet life,
accidentally spends his last coin on gemstones,
leaving him broke and desperate!
To make ends meet, he becomes a livestreamer,
broadcasting his mysterious magical lifestyle
just to get through each day.
But then…
His streams catch the attention of “Jaden,”
the heir to a gemstone empire and an art collector obsessed with a centuries-old painting of a ginger-haired, opal-eyed wizard—
a figure he’s searched for his whole life.
Until finally… he finds Joel online.
Is it fate, or something more, that draws them together?
Can Joel unlock the mysteries of Jaden’s past?
A timeless love story infused with magic and technology will change both of their lives forever…

Hiding my identity and marrying an ambitious female celebrity—this is the most boring social experiment I've ever done.
She wants me to leave with nothing.
She gave my family heirloom to that gigolo.
She tweeted that I was "low-class trash".
She didn't know that Hollywood, which she was desperately trying to climb up to, was nothing more than my backyard.
She had no idea that those capitalists she fawned over would all bow down and call me "Mr. Rockwell."
Until that night, she stripped naked, attempting to offer herself to the enigmatic "godfather of capital"—
The leather sofa slowly turned around.
The lights were on.
She saw my face.
“Chloe,” I flicked my cigar ash, “what brings you here?”

I’m a top assassin.

Three years ago, on a rainy night, I was being hunted when a stranger took a bullet for me. As he lay dying, he grabbed my hand and begged me to protect his son—and to keep living in his place.

To escape my pursuers and keep that promise, I changed my face, took his identity, and stayed by the boy’s side as his father.

His wife was arrogant, cruel, and constantly cheating. For the child—and to protect my cover—I endured all of it.

Until today.

She drugged me.

When I woke up, a doctor was holding a blade over my chest. They were about to take my heart.

Lying on that operating table, I finally learned the truth: her family had been trafficking organs all along.

That man died three years ago because he discovered it, and she arranged the crash that killed him.

She murdered the man who saved me. Now she wants to kill me too.

She still thinks I’m the same weak doctor who gets out of breath after a short run.

She doesn’t know I’m resistant to anesthesia.

And she definitely doesn’t know these hands have held scalpels—and snapped far too many necks.

Ten years of secret service honed my Phantom Legion, a force I built that could make a small nation tremble. On the day I retired and returned to New York, I found a cardboard tent next to a garbage dump in a Bronx back alley. Curled up inside was my daughter, whom I hadn't seen in five years. She was covered in bruises, barefoot, and clutching half a moldy loaf of bread. I picked her up and dialed the phone—"I want everyone who wronged her to suffer a fate worse than death! "

My wife was forced to don a wedding dress to marry my sworn enemy, while my three-year-old daughter was locked in an iron cage suspended above the raging sea.

And I, the dignified Commander-in-Chief of the Blackwater Fleet, was forced to wear a dog collar, kneeling on broken glass and licking up red wine like a crippled stray dog.
All because embedded in their necks were biological bombs, the detonator held in the hands of my enemy.

The elites of the entire island ruthlessly mocked my cowardice, trampling me underfoot in ultimate humiliation.

That was until the climax of the maritime wedding, when my enemy smugly pressed the detonator, only for the collars to flash a safe green light—the full-frequency signal decryption was complete.
Amidst the dead silence of the crowd, I snapped the forged steel chains binding me and slowly stood tall.

The next second, ten nuclear-powered submarines violently breached the ocean surface, and tens of thousands of heavily armored death squads descended from the sky.

Looking at my enemy, now terrified to the point of incontinence and shattering his own knees to frantically kowtow and beg for mercy, I picked up that very dog chain and slipped it around his neck.

After sleeping for a thousand years, I returned to the ancestral castle that was supposed to be mine.
Only to find my throne torn down and turned into an auction block for the black market, my territory carved up clean by traitors.
And my only pureblood descendant in this world was actually being auctioned off like livestock—covered in blood, chained up with a cheap dog collar around his neck.
The entire room of nobles and elites mistook me for the lowest kind of half-blood trash, mocking me as a rat too stupid to know when he was dead.
The usurper, eager to curry favor with the Abyss, shouted that he would drain me dry and offer my blood as a tribute to the three pureblood princes deep within the Abyss.
Then the void split open, and those three supreme princes—the untouchable monsters the world worshiped—truly descended.
Under the horrified gaze of more than a thousand nobles and elites, those three ancient monsters threw themselves at my feet, scrambling and crawling, wailing in terror without even daring to raise their heads:
"Your unworthy descendants... welcome the Ancestor's return!!!"

In my past life, I drained my own dragon blood to help my husband, Flark, ascend into a dragon. I nearly sacrificed my life to bear him our dragon-beast son, Fris. Yet, all I received in return was ruthless betrayal.
Flark personally brought me a cup of deadly poison, sneering that my lowborn white snake blood had stained the noble dragon race.
Even Fris, the son I raised with my own hands, threw my true body to the giant eagles without a shred of mercy. He cold-bloodedly declared that only my half-sister, Bryn, was worthy of all the glory.
As my flesh was torn apart in agonizing despair, I died harboring endless hatred—only to be reborn on the day of the marriage selection.
This time, Flark got his wish. He publicly abandoned me, joyfully choosing to marry my half-sister Bryn, foolishly believing he could use her power to leap into dragonhood.
What he would never know was that I—the one he so trashily threw away—was the true possessor of the pure Dragon Bloodline.

I was frozen for 100 years due to illness.
One hundred years later, the whole world was ravaged by strange phenomena, and humanity was huddled together in a few small places to survive.
I was awakened from my slumber by the investigation team. I thought I would be killed by the monster as soon as I woke up, but I found that the monster here was my good brother from college.
Besides him, the eerie owner of the barbecue restaurant, the matchmaking ghost who likes to harm people through blind dates, the S-class monstrous ghost in the cemetery... they are all my old friends...
The world a hundred years from now feels strangely familiar...

Last time, she chased the “true love” a corporate spy sold her—publicly branded me controlling, stole my core tech, and helped him shove me off a rooftop.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back before it all began.

This time I didn’t expose her, didn’t confront her, and didn’t beg her to stay. I set the trap—watched her come close again, test my limits, and steal the “core technology”…

Until the stolen code blew up the rival company, until she was unmasked in front of the cameras and taken away in handcuffs.

Through tears, she demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner he was a corporate spy?”

I answered only, “I did. Last life.”

Before the apocalypse hit, my ex-girlfriend called me, laughing like a maniac: "Jack, you pathetic loser—still playing that stupid farming game? Gonna whack zombies with a hoe? Open the door right now, get on your knees, and beg us, and maybe we'll throw you some table scraps."
I listened to the faint scrape of a tactical knife being drawn on the other end of the line, and silently glanced at my computer screen—at the maxed-out Greenfield Manor game, with its gold cap glowing at [999,999,999] .
"You misheard." I dropped my voice, lacing it with just the right amount of embarrassment. "I was checking the weather forecast."
The other end erupted in unrestrained laughter: "Then forecast this—how you're gonna die today!"
I hung up without changing my expression, flipped open the system, and spent a million on the [Absolute Defense Shield] —then brought out a steaming plate of roasted meat.
Forecast?
I forecast that tonight, you'll be gnawed down to bare bones by zombies.

I’m Leona, and I’ve hidden a forbidden love under the moonlight of the werewolf world for nine long years—an unspoken bond with my brother’s closest friend, Alpha Nick.
When he looked at me and said, “I’ll find someone better for you,” there was a flicker in his eyes I couldn’t read. But when he turned away, it was to chase after his ex-girlfriend, Selene, crashing through the forest branches like gravity itself answered her call. “His wolf never resonated with ours.” Aris, my wolf, howled inside me.“You’ve spent years trying to spark fire in frozen stone.”
And yet, I was the fool who mistook the instinct for fated love.
In my past life, when I was seven months pregnant and trapped beneath an avalanche during a winter patrol, he was tucked in a border cave listening to Selene sing ballads under moonlit stalactites.
When I was curled in pain from stomach ulcers, he was busy tuning her purification crystals.

My target should be terrified of me.
Instead, he's smirking like he already knows I'll never pull the trigger.
My heart races in my chest. This isn't me.
I am born to kill. I am born to take orders.
Yet those eyes, they're killing me.

She was born into power.
Now she chooses revenge.

Valentina Santangelo doesn’t belong in the shadows.
She was raised in them.

Daughter of a legacy built on blood, secrets, and ruthless control, Valentina has spent her life watching empires rise… and enemies fall. She knows the rules of this world. She knows how to survive it.

What she didn’t expect…
was to become its most dangerous player.

When betrayal rips through her family and threatens everything her father built, Valentina is done standing on the side-lines. She steps into the game—cold, calculated, and ready to make them pay.

But revenge has a price.

And the man standing in her way?
He’s not just her enemy…
He’s the one man who sees through every wall she’s built.

Dark. Dangerous. Impossible to resist.

As loyalty turns to obsession and desire collides with vengeance, Valentina must decide how far she’s willing to go—
and whether love is worth the risk of losing everything.

Because in her world…
you don’t fall in love.

You survive it.

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: SCANDAL AND SUPPER is Book #5 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews!Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, leaves the stressful life behind and heads to a small town in coastal Maine to create a new life. She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B. Yet there was one thing she couldn’t plan for: the house is haunted. Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.When Marie is hired to cleanse a unique and massive hotel in a nearby town, the scope of it is beyond anything she has encountered before. Just as she wonders if she has finally met her match, she learns that her local Mayor is trying to re-zone the downtown—and to shut down her B&B while he’s at it. Having a murder in the mix—for which she is pinned—hardly helps matters, either. In a multi-front war for her survival, can Marie manage to purge the ghosts, stay out of jail, and keep her livelihood?A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS is an un-putdownable cozy series that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: DEATH AND BRUNCH is Book #2 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews! Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, leaves the stressful life behind and heads to a small town in coastal Maine to create a new life. She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B. Yet there was one thing she couldn’t plan for: the house is haunted. Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.Other B&B owners have heard of Marie’s ability to expel ghosts, and she finds herself, to her own surprise, in demand for her “services” from neighboring towns. It seems there are many B&Bs that need to have their ghosts cleansed. With her B&B failing, Marie, her trusted dog as her sidekick, has nothing to lose.But when she arrives to her first client—and someone unexpectedly dies—Marie realizes she may be in for more than she bargained for. Once again, she may have to solve the crime to save her own future.A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: DEATH AND BRUNCH is an un-putdownable cozy that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)Book #3 in the series—MALICE AND LUNCH—is now also available!

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: MALICE AND LUNCH is Book #3 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews!Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, leaves the stressful life behind and heads to a small town in coastal Maine to create a new life. She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B. Yet there was one thing she couldn’t plan for: the house is haunted. Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.When Marie, her reputation for ghost-cleansing growing, is summoned to exorcise an old manor house, she finds more than she bargained for: an unexpected death occurs.Worse, her trusted dog gets so sick, he is sent to the vet indefinitely.Marie, on her own, must solve the murder and expel the ghosts all by herself.Is she up to the task?A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: MALICE AND LUNCH is an un-putdownable cozy that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: MURDER AND BREAKFAST is the debut novel in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews.Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, has had enough of catering to the wealthy and their pampered dogs. Realizing it is time to make a change, she quits and heads to a small coastal town in Maine where she remembers fond summers as a kid. Marie expects to go for a brief getaway—and is shocked to learn that her great-aunt left her an inheritance: a dilapidated, historic house high up on a hill overlooking the harbor. Marie feels an instant connection. Although the locals tell her it would be folly, Marie decides to renovate and give it a second life as a B&B.But there is one thing she couldn’t have planned for: the house is haunted.Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.When an unexpected death occurs soon thereafter, solving the crime will be more than just a matter of curiosity for Marie—her very future may depend on it.A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS is an un-putdownable cozy that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)Books #2 and #3 in the series—DEATH AND BRUNCH and MALICE AND LUNCH—are now also available!

My girlfriend told me she was part of a social experiment. Her task was to get close to a target, and if she quit, she’d owe a crushing penalty.

So she kept canceling on me, staying out all night, and letting another man hold her—then came home in tears and said she had no choice.

I believed her for three years.

What she never knew was that I was the hidden heir to a billion-dollar family empire. While we were together, I was under a private family test and forbidden to reveal who I really was.

The day that test ended, I took back my name.

The first thing I did wasn’t return to the boardroom. I went straight to the lab behind her so-called experiment.

The man in charge turned the screen toward me. “We never had any massive penalty. The contract is clear. She could have quit at any time.”

Three years. No forced mission. No trap she couldn’t escape.

Every line she crossed, she chose to cross herself.

I didn’t confront her. I just took my things, ended the relationship, and walked away.

She thought I was just angry.

She had no idea that after reclaiming my identity, the first thing I did was uncover every lie she had ever told me.

I mined in a medieval pit, lived on moldy black bread, with whip scars across my back and iron chains around my ankles. The lord treated us like livestock.

I thought that was simply how the world worked—until I forced open a hidden passage and crawled into a white corridor that should not have existed: cold fluorescent lights, metal doors, surveillance cameras, as if the skin of the age had been ripped away in an instant.

That was when I understood: the Middle Ages were only a set, everyone around me was acting, and I was nothing more than a toy for the amusement of the rich.

They cloned the real-life rivals they could never defeat, threw them into different “scenarios,” and tortured them for pleasure.

They thought they could keep me in the dark forever.

What they don’t know is that I’m ready to get out—and tear this entire human-toy industry out by the roots.

Before the zombie outbreak, I was a hardcore doomsday prepper. I hoarded countless supplies, but when the apocalypse actually arrived, I ended up turning into a zombie myself. Just as I was overwhelmed with panic, my girlfriend and the guy she was cheating on me with brought a mob of thugs to smash down my door...

I have guarded the Abyss on the Ashen Plains for a thousand years.

My daily routine: chewing rock-hard rye bread, single-handedly crushing the skulls of trespassing demons, wiping their slime off on a ragged surcoat, and leaning against a bronze pillar to catch the wind.

Today, a dying girl stumbled into the wasteland. Her fingers were locked in a death grip around the bloodstained iron crest I had left behind a millennium ago. Up on the ridge, three hundred heavy cavalrymen of the Alliance drew their lances, forming a wall of steel as they closed in.

I stared at the blood on the ground. I didn't make a sound.

I just brushed the biscuit crumbs off my lap and stretched my stiff neck. Turning around, my fingers hooked onto the hilt of a rust-eaten battleaxe resting beneath the bronze pillar. I dragged it along with casual ease.

"Troublesome."

I muttered that single word, and walked alone toward the formation of steel.

If a zombie opens its bloody maw at you — not to eat you, but to trade for a steak —

Do you take the deal?

I opened a wasteland exchange with a hundred thousand tons of frozen meat, priced everything with a barcode scanner, and used the Law of the Abyss as my guarantee.

When the mechanical army surrounded my cold storage, I hit the citywide broadcast:

"Big order, open to all — whoever tears apart the man on that heavy truck eats as much meat as they want."

My squadmates falsely accused me of being a vampire. They poured scalding water over me claiming it was "holy water," spiked my meals with garlic extract, and even splashed me with stinking goat blood. In the end, their madness drove them to plunge a sharpened cross straight into my heart...

On my first day as an intern at the zoo, the old director assigned us animals to care for.
In my previous life, my classmate Jack chose the easy-to-care-for African elephant, while I was forced to take on the brutal Siberian tiger.
A month later, the apocalypse struck, and the Siberian tiger successfully evolved, leading me to escape the encirclement.
Jack's elephant, however, couldn't outrun the mutated species and was torn to pieces. Driven
by jealousy, the surviving Jack incited a mob to brutally beat me and the giant tiger to death, dismembering and cannibalizing us.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the animals were assigned.
Jack had already taken the Siberian tiger, pushing the elephant to me, and I knew he had also been reborn.
But what he didn't know was that the Siberian tiger he had devoured was also reborn with me.

Her daughter lay dying—her only chance at survival resting in a bone marrow transplant from her biological father.
That man, the one Stella Johnson had once loved with all her heart, was nowhere to be found.
While Stella made call after call, hands trembling with desperation, Charles Hart was busy building a crystal castle for the daughter of his beloved white moonlight—lighting up the entire city with fireworks in her honor.
All Stella got in return was a cold, clipped response:
"I'm busy."
And then… silence.
She waited.
And waited.
Until the warmth left her daughter's tiny hand.
He never came.
Cradling the small urn, Stella stepped into the streets—only to be greeted by a cruel spectacle.
Every digital screen on the bustling boulevard played the same scene:
Charles, his white moonlight, and their daughter, smiling under the fireworks as they sang "Happy Birthday," basking in a future built on someone else's grave.
The love Stella once held for Charles didn't just die that night—it was burned to ash.
And from those ashes, something far stronger rose:
Hatred. Cold. Sharp. Unforgiving.

I hate Beckett Hayes.
I hate his stupidly perfect face.
I hate the arrogant smirk that has sold millions of jerseys.
I hate that half of Chicago seems to worship the ground his skates touch.
But mostly? I hate what he did to my brother.
Eight years ago, Beckett Hayes destroyed my family. I haven't spoken to him since.
So naturally, on the first morning of my dream job with Chicago's hottest professional hockey team, I find him leaning against my office door.
Older. Bigger. Hotter. And wearing the same infuriating smile I remember.
My new job should have nothing to do with Beck. Until another one of the captain's scandals lands him in trouble and management decides I'm exactly the person he needs.
Now I'm traveling with him. Managing him. Arguing with him. Trying very hard not to notice what years of professional hockey have done to his body.
Then a photograph of us nearly kissing goes viral.
Suddenly everyone wants Beckett Hayes and Sloane Mercer together. The team. The sponsors. The fans. Everyone except me.
Because I know exactly who Beck is. At least, I thought I did.
But the closer I get to him, the more the story I've believed for eight years starts falling apart.
Beck didn't destroy my brother. He protected him.
And the man I've spent almost a decade hating? He's spent every one of those years wanting me.

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE WITCHING PLACE: MURDER BY MANUSCRIPT is book #2 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews.When Alexis Blair, 29, is fired from her book publishing job and breaks up with her boyfriend on the same day, she wonders if life is urging her to make a fresh start. She decides it’s time to pursue her lifelong dream of opening a bookstore of her own—even if that means leaving Boston and accepting a job in a curious bookstore in a small seaside town an hour away.When Alexis is dispatched to scout out some books in an estate sale in a gothic mansion, she finds something she does not expect: one book is incredibly rare, the only one of its kind in existence, worth millions of dollars.She also soon finds something else she does not expect: a dead body.Thrust in the middle of the crime, will Alexis be able to clear her name?And will she discover the mystery at the heart of her very own store?A page-turning cozy, rife with the supernatural, mystery, secrets and love—and centered around a small town as odd and endearing as its shop—A CURIOUS BOOKSTORE will make you fall in love and keep you laughing out loud as you turn pages late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)Book #3 in the series—A PERILOUS PAGE—is now also available!

She knelt in the pouring rain, pounding on my glass door, covered in mud, her voice hoarse from shouting. I stood inside, holding Lily's hand. She called my name, over and over, like calling a dead person. I lowered my head and said to Lily, "Come on, Daddy will take you to dinner." Then I turned and closed the door. From beginning to end, I didn't look at her once. Not because I still hated her. It was because she meant nothing to me anymore. And that woman didn't know—three years ago, when she threw me away like trash, I had already learned not to cling to trash.

The luxury cruise ship in the high seas had become a floating steel coffin for the beautiful CEO and me.
Just a door away, the corridor was teeming with slithering, tentacled Mimics. The wet, crunching sounds of them chewing on raw flesh were enough to make anyone’s scalp go numb.
Inside the pitch-black storage cabin—measuring barely three square meters—the usually aloof and untouchable Ice Queen of the corporate world was so terrified she had her flawless body pressed desperately against my chest.
In this extreme claustrophobia, her scalding body heat generated a fierce friction against me in the face of absolute despair.
"Keep me alive. Everything I have... is yours."

My ex and I used to live inside a romance movie.

She was the heroine’s best friend. I was the hero’s loyal sidekick. When the leads got their happy ending, we—the two “extras”—ended up together like an afterthought.

Then the credits rolled, and real life didn’t. The heroine died in a car crash, the hero fell apart, and my girlfriend chose that moment to leave me.

She said she was done being a supporting role. She wanted the spotlight—she wanted the heroine’s place.

I didn’t beg. I left the city alone and started over from nothing.

Five years later, I returned with my own company group—and ran into her again at a charity gala.

She still looked flawless, moving through the room of power and money, keeping up the image of success. She assumed I was still the same guy trailing behind someone else, and she spoke to me with that familiar, pitying superiority—offering to “help” me back into the circle.

Until the lights dimmed, and the host read my name with respectful clarity, inviting me to the stage.

That was when she realized the gala’s biggest sponsor was me—and the “sidekick” she thought she’d left behind was now someone she could never reach again.

I am the youngest Don of the Obsidian Family.
After an unexpected rest, my opponent sent me a street racing invitation.
I went to my brother's company to retrieve my car, but was drugged with ether by my brother's secretary.
She told me that no one could seduce her man.
She kicked my stomach, threatened me with a paper cutter to make a vow, and said her future sister-in-law is the youngest Don of the Obsidian Family—if I dared to retaliate against her, I would die miserably.
I looked at her coldly.
Really?
But I haven't agreed to be your sister-in-law yet!

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: DISASTER AND DESSERT is Book #6—and the finale!—in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews!Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, leaves the stressful life behind and heads to a small town in coastal Maine to create a new life. She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B. Yet there was one thing she couldn’t plan for: the house is haunted. Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.In the series finale, Marie finds her own future on the line as a murder occurs near her premises, and she is forced to solve it or else be implicated. With her rival innkeeper involved, it could hardly get any worse.As if that is not enough, this series finale brings to a head many questions: will Marie finally find her mother and what will happen between them? Will Marie end up with Robbie? With Brendan? Will she finally be able to claim her gifts, without Boo's help? And will she decide to stay and run the B&B—or be forced to leave this small town that has become her life?A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS is an un-putdownable cozy series that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)Don’t forget to check out Sophie Love’s other cozy mystery series, A CURIOUS BOOKSTORE, which begins with A FATAL FOLIO (Book #1), a bestseller with over 50 five-star reviews!

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.”--Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever)THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS: VENGEANCE AND DINNER is Book #4 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews!Marie Fortune, 39, a successful dog groomer in Boston, leaves the stressful life behind and heads to a small town in coastal Maine to create a new life. She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B. Yet there was one thing she couldn’t plan for: the house is haunted. Two things, actually: her great-aunt also left her a dog—and he is far from a typical dog.When Marie is invited to exorcise a supposedly haunted house, she encounters a twist she never could have anticipated. But before she can wrap her mind around the situation, a man turns up dead—forcing her to solve the case and to clear her own name.A page-turning cozy, packed with mystery, love, hauntings, travel, pets and food—anchored around a small town and a B&B in need of renovation that will capture your heart—THE GHOSTLY GROUNDS is an un-putdownable cozy series that will keep you turning pages (and laughing out loud) late into the night.“The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.”--Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)

What is fate? Waking up three days after you rejected your fated mates in front of the entire school, with the memories of your husband's betrayal still burning in your chest? Or finding out that the only way to save your empire is to compete for love on national television—against the man who murdered you?

Make your pick.

Odessa Montgomery died at thirty—cheated on, poisoned, and blown to pieces by the husband she trusted. Then she opened her eyes at twenty-one, three days after the mating gala where she publicly rejected the De Luca triplets. The rejection is still fresh. The whole school is still talking. And Damien Gracias, her charming hockey-star boyfriend, has no idea she remembers every lie he ever told her.

She dumps him. Publicly. Brutally. But freedom comes at a cost. Her grandfather's will is clear: find a mate or lose the Montgomery empire. With Damien out and the De Luca triplets—her humiliated fated mates—lurking in her past, her options are nothing.

Then comes Moonlit Bonds, a televised competition where unmated shifters compete for love and a life-changing prize. Win, and her inheritance is hers. Lose, and lose everything.

There's just one problem. Damien and his true mate, Sarah, have joined the show, hoping to legitimize their bond on camera. And the De Luca triplets are also contestants—three alphas she rejected, two who bullied her, and one who has never stopped watching.

Now Odessa is trapped in a villa with cameras in every corner, a public audience that votes on her fate, and enemies who want her dead.

She came to win.

She might just find revenge.

But falling for the enemy? That was never part of the plan.

In our third year of surviving the wasteland, my companions and I finally realized it was all a reality show.

The elites and billionaires on the outside had built a massive dome, tossing us into this irradiated hellhole to be tortured. They broadcasted it globally, watching us drink toxic wastewater and eat mutated meat, treating us like monkeys in a zoo.

The mole in our team knelt in the mud, sobbing, begging me to understand that it was all a script—that as long as I played along, I could live.

Without a second thought, I swung my blade. Right in front of ten million VIP viewers, I chopped off his leg.

"Crappy script," I sneered, kicking aside the severed limbs and blood on the floor. Gripping my machete, I walked toward the real world beyond the heavy gates.

To those who used our lives for entertainment: I'm coming for yours.

"I absolutely love your huge, thick cock, James. Just let me ride it tonight, and I'll pay you to be my secret whore," my wife's sister-in-law purred, climbing into my bed completely naked, her wet, dripping pussy grinding against my thigh.

I threw her naked body onto the floor like trash. For three years, I played the pathetic, submissive househusband to my arrogant wife, Emily. I endured their endless humiliation, hiding the fact that I was the billionaire heir and lethal ex-special forces agent keeping their pathetic family alive.

But today, the three-year contract hit zero.

When a rival mafia boss kicked down our door, threatening to massacre everyone, my wife's sister Rhea desperately ripped her dress open, exposing her heavy, bare breasts, begging the boss to fuck her raw right there on the floor if he spared her life.

I’d had enough.

I stepped forward, snapping the necks and shattering the bones of a dozen armed guards, leaving them choking on their own blood. As my fleet of twenty armored Rolls-Royces surrounded the villa, my true identity was finally revealed.

Seeing my unimaginable power, Rhea crawled to my feet, shoving her massive tits against my leg, begging to suck my cock and share my bed with my wife.

I slapped her across her slutty face, tore up the marriage contract, and walked out.

Behind me, Emily collapsed, sobbing hysterically. "If I had just spread my legs for him... if I had just let him breed me and fill my womb with his heir, I would be the queen of the world..."

She's begging for my seed now, but should I lock her in my basement and make her pay for the last three years?

At the company's annual client appreciation dinner, I was the one in charge of booking the venue.
To save the company money, I picked my aunt's upscale restaurant with a skyline view. Since we were family, she only charged us at cost. When I posted the details in our Slack channel to confirm with the team, no one had any objections—except for the intern, who slowly tagged me in the chat:
[Arthur, I don't mean anything by it.]
[I just want to ask—how big a kickback did you get for booking your family's restaurant?]
[After all, the money for this dinner is coming out of our bonus pool.]
[So you should return that money to the rest of us, right?]
The other coworkers started liking the message and chiming in to support him.
So I dropped the whole thing on the spot and handed the task over to that intern, who loved talking about "fixing workplace injustice."
Then the night of the dinner came.
From the CEO all the way down to the investors, everyone was pinned on the deck and searched by armed Coast Guard officers.
The most important client contact collapsed from a heart attack on the spot and was airlifted by helicopter straight to the ICU, costing the company a multimillion-dollar enterprise cybersecurity contract.

A natural born female Alpha is unheard of in the werewolf world. It's always the first born male that's the Alpha. However, at least one exists. Faelyn was sold to another pack at the age of eight under a false name and rank after being ripped away from her parents and brother who disappeared without a trace. She spent ten years being mistreated and abused in the Red Moon pack as Alyce Lilly, Omega to the Pack Manor. She also spent ten years plotting revenge on the man responsible for taking everything away from her, including her pack and her family. She has plans to leave Red Moon and seems the stars are aligning for her do so successfully. Fate, however, has other plans for her when she discovers her mate and rejects him without hesitation. With her best friend by her side she presses forward with her plans, only for another to throw her off again. Will she succeed in getting back her rightful pack while keeping her secrets safe until she does? Will she find the answers she seeks, the family she secretly yearns for?

“I prefer to be in the arms of other men who would treat me right than be with you anymore” she breathed out.
“How dare you” he yelled at her face while she stood her ground to him.
“What are you...”
Before she could finish her sentence, he pinned her to the wall and kissed her fiercely. He wrapped her legs around his waist leaving her back pinned to the wall as he deepened the kiss.
He pulled away from the kiss slowly kissing her neck in turn as his hand slid into her panties. His fingers fondled with her wet folds giving her shimmers of pleasure she had never felt.


Elaine, a beautiful young lady who had everything just found out that she had cancer and had about a year to live. Shattered by the news, she hid it from her family that maltreated only for them to realize the truth and cuss her out breaking her heart.In a bid to enjoy her life to the fullest, she had a one night stand with a man but to her greatest surprise, it turned out to be her husband.