9524 Book(s) Related to a true story of the great escape

I married Adrian Bennett to pay off my family's debt. The contract was simple enough to fit on one page and insane enough to ruin my life: give him a daughter, and every dollar I owed vanished. Give him a son, and the balance doubled.
 
I gave him a boy. Then another boy. The debt quadrupled.
 
When our third child finally arrived and the doctor announced she was a girl, Adrian-the coldest CEO in Lakebridge-cried over her bassinet. He zeroed out my accounts before my anesthesia even wore off.
 
I thought I had finally survived the game.
 
Then his childhood friend came to visit. She took one look at the sea of pink dresses taking over our house and scoffed, claiming a daughter could never inherit the Bennett empire.
 
Adrian was on the floor, detangling our daughter's hair.
 
Without breaking his focus, he said, "My daughter will own the empire. And if she wants three husbands to serve her, I’ll buy them houses."
 
That was when I realized two things.
 
First, nobody in Lakebridge understood how dangerous it was to insult Adrian Bennett's daughter.
 
Second, I still had absolutely no idea if he wanted her mother.

I've been married to my husband Jake for three years. In that time, I've been pregnant twice.

But each time, I lost the baby.

What took my children wasn't a medical condition, but a painting.

A black bird, painted by Jake's ten-year-old blind brother, Billy.

My in-laws claimed he had the gift—a psychic born with sight beyond sight. And the black bird was an omen. It marked my baby as cursed, a threat to the family.

To save my second child, I got the best amniocentesis report money could buy, proving the baby had no genetic defects.

It happened again anyway.

At three in the morning, I woke to the agony of another miscarriage and stumbled to the studio door.

That's when I found out the truth.

Reunited, I became the “perfect wife” Julian had always dreamed of.
I didn’t ask where he was when he didn’t come home.
When his “one that got away” came to our door to provoke me, I greeted her with a polite smile.
I even caught them in the act, and instead of screaming, I thoughtfully closed the door for them.
The Elara who used to break down in hysterics over his infidelity was dead.

The woman standing here now was nothing more than a shell, existing solely for her daughter.
Finally, Julian began to panic. He knelt in the pouring rain, begging me to curse him, begging me to still love him—or even hate him.
But as I looked down at him, I didn’t just feel nothing. I felt sick.
"Julian, I don't hate you."
I just find every second spent with you utterly disgusting.

They found my husband locked inside his mistress.

Not metaphorically. Literally locked—a medical phenomenon called vaginal spasm, triggered when their sports car crashed mid-affair on a mountain road. The doctors said separating them required a high-risk spinal injection. Without it, he'd lose everything below the waist. Possibly his life.

They needed my signature. The wife's consent.

I looked at the consent form. Then at my phone—47 missed calls from three nights ago, when our four-year-old son stopped breathing.

Adrian never picked up. He was too busy.

Now he was begging me to sign.

I wiped away my tears, picked up the pen.

Now it was his turn to die.

On the day I gave birth to my daughter, Iris, my husband Hollis pushed open the hospital room door, dragging a four-year-old boy by the arm. Eyes red and welling with tears, he said, "Look who I brought home."
My mother-in-law wept tears of joy. My son, Felix—who supposedly died in the winery fire five months ago—had returned "from the dead."
The whole room was crying over this miracle, but my blood ran cold: since the second he walked through that door, Hollis hadn't spared a single glance at our newborn daughter.
I secretly collected a DNA sample from the boy and sent it for expedited testing. The results confirmed it: this wasn't my son at all. He was Hollis’s illegitimate child with another woman.
That same night, I pulled up the nursery's hidden camera footage and watched with my own eyes as this man injected poison into Iris’s breast milk. Soon after, he brazenly moved his mistress—my personal assistant—into my home.
A towering wave of hatred consumed me. I swore I would make them pay in blood...

My boyfriend Tyler, his childhood sweetheart Chelsea, and I went on a road trip through the Australian Outback in the Northern Territory.

A few scrawny, yellow-coated dogs lingered by the roadside. Chelsea insisted on getting out to feed them.

I warned her they were dingoes, vicious predators that ruled this desert.

Her eyes welled up and she called me heartless. Tyler jumped in too, saying I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, that I didn't get what it was like for regular people, that I couldn't even spare a couple of hot dogs.

She forced the door open and ran out. The pack lunged at her. Her screams tore through the air. Tyler cowered in the car, shaking.

I was the only one who got out to help her.

Chelsea scrambled back into the car, but Tyler slammed the door shut and locked it.

I never forgot his face pressed against the window, terrified and selfish. I never forgot the despair of feeling fangs rip through my throat.

After I died, the two of them flew back to the States and posted a sobbing video, claiming I was the one who'd insisted on getting out to take pictures and set the dogs off.

The online hate came for my family, all of it, all at once. My parents, both with weak hearts, collapsed under the stress. Neither one made it.

My whole family, destroyed because I couldn't stop caring for one second.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day the trip started.

My husband had been traveling a lot lately. Intuition told me he was cheating.
I kept quiet. For his birthday, I gifted him AirPods—secretly linked to my backup Apple ID.
At 10:00 p.m., his "Find My" location wasn't heading to the airport. It had stopped at a decade-abandoned lumber yard.
I floored it, obsessed with catching them in bed.
But when I arrived, I only found a corpse.

My influencer roommate paid a small fortune to grow a tub of "all-natural" beauty mud in our bathroom.
Ten days later, the thing crawled out of her face — in front of three hundred people at a party.
And I'd known it was coming from the day I first saw what she was growing.

My sister’s TikTok Shop was on the verge of being shut down. As a top livestream creator with three million followers, I stepped in and turned a warehouse full of dead inventory into bestsellers.

That night, my sister shipped the wrong items for three hundred orders. I apologized on camera, then paid ten thousand dollars out of my own pocket to issue refunds and send replacements.

After the livestream, I went to the warehouse to pick up samples for tomorrow. The second I grabbed two insulated tumblers, my sister snatched them out of my hands.

“I knew it! You’ve been stealing from me again!”

I told her they were samples and that every item had been logged.

She refused to listen and smacked the shelf with her palm.

“My inventory has been off for months because you’ve been stealing from me! Pay me twenty thousand dollars, or I’m calling the cops!”

For three months, I hadn’t charged a flat fee or taken a dime in commission. I had even covered the customer service costs myself.

And now she was calling me a thief.

Our parents rushed in when they heard the shouting. Mom wrapped an arm around my sister and glared at me.

“You’re her older sister. You’re supposed to help her. But stealing says everything about what kind of person you are.”

Dad looked at me with disappointment. “Do you have any idea how hard your sister has worked to build this business? How could you take advantage of her?”

I looked at the three of them, each one convinced they were in the right, and laughed.

Fine. If they thought anyone could sell this stuff, they could go live and sell it themselves.

Since marrying into the Sterling family, I've been pregnant three times. Not one of them survived.

Every time the DNA test report arrived, my mother-in-law would drag me to the clinic for an abortion.

They said the fetus had genetic defects. But I secretly went to an outside hospital for tests, and the report clearly stated everything was normal.

After my third miscarriage, I followed my in-laws to the basement I was forbidden to enter.

I held my breath and pressed my eye to the crack in the door.

In that moment, I finally knew why they had to kill my babies.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?"
Anderson's back stiffened.
Undoubtedly, she was beautiful.
After a while, he said uneasily, "Yeah."
Clarissa moved closer to him. She whispered in his ear and she thought that her voice was very low, "If I want to sleep with you, will you agree?"
He narrowed his eyes slightly and said with meaningful eyes, "You have to pay the price for sleeping with me. Are you sure?"
"Money? I have money." Clarissa laughed, "Aren't they looking down on me? I'm going to find someone who is much better than him. I want to piss them off!"
She then put her arms around his neck and kissed his lips.
It was a torrid night.
The next morning, however, he handed her a copy of the marriage application she had signed.


Clarissa Chapman, one day, when delivering condoms to a hotel room, she found her client was her... fiance?
She caught her fiance and half-sister in bed! Only then did Clarissa realize that her six-year-relationship boyfriend had cheated on her!
What's more ridiculous? Her father said it was because she wasn't attractive and her sister's more deserving of him.
Dumped her douchebag fiance, she bumped into her Mr. Right by a one-night stand!
Wait... why was this man looked exactly like the Billionaire CEO - Anderson Jordan on TV?!
Anderson was of many things, handsome, considerate, and loyal.
She'd never imagine a gorgeous like Anderson would fall in love with her, until that day...
Her nightmarish family found her, trying to drag her to the miserable past...again...

Lucille was one of the most skilled female assassins, and on the previous night, she embarked on a top-secret mission. However, the mission's details were leaked, leading to her untimely demise at the hands of a traitorous companion. She never discovered the identity of the person who betrayed her before her death. But by some miracle, she was granted a new life, and was reborn as a girl with the same name. Determined to uncover the truth and seek revenge for her family, Lucille seized her second chance at life. She planned to avenge her loved ones. However, her plans were complicated by Joseph, an apparently frail man who was actually skilled in martial arts. And he seemed to fall for her deeply, now this newfound knowledge only added to the complications of Lucille's revenge plan...

She was her own person and knew exactly what she wanted.
He owned the shit and thought he could do anything.
She had something he wanted, but she didn't know it.
He had what she'd always dreamed of, but she had no idea how to get it.
She lied for love.
He didn't forgive anyone.
She hated him from the first time she saw him.
He tried to destroy her in every possible way.
Bárbara Novaes never imagined that her peaceful life would suddenly turn upside down, when a deathbed request would make her main objective be to enter the life of the best known CEO in the country.
Heitor Casanova has never seen a woman as persecuting and insistent as Bárbara. But it didn't cross her mind that she didn't want the same as everyone else: "him".
The bond that united them would force them both to live under the same roof, with a single common goal: to protect what they loved most.
Was it possible for mutual anger to turn into love?
Would they admit the new feelings that arose, which they were not able to accept?
And they would overcome together all the obstacles that would be created to prevent this relationship from happening???

Amelia Russo is a weapon of the state. As a military captain and the daughter of a legendary general, her life is governed by duty, honor, and one mission: eliminate "The Shadow," the faceless myth ruling Verona’s bloody underworld.

Lorenzo Ren Moretti is a master of deception. To high society, he is Luca D'Angelo, a charming billionaire CEO. To the streets, he is a cold-blooded monster with icy blue eyes and a past carved in tattoos. He commands fear. He demands absolute loyalty. And he has never met an enemy he couldn't break.

Until he meets her.

When Amelia crosses paths with the enigmatic billionaire Luca, an intoxicating, forbidden game of cat and mouse begins.

I've played the broken girl for years, hiding behind a fake scar. They think they've crushed me. They're wrong. Revenge is mine.

"You can't run from me," Jack Sterling smirked, eyes blazing.

"I've destroyed worse." I snapped, "Underestimate me. Big mistake."

In his private suite, his touch claimed me. "You're mine to break," he growled, his kiss igniting a hunger I can't escape.

Tortured by my cruel sister, betrayed by my ex, nearly sold off—my life's hell. But I'll save my loved ones and burn them all.

Ella Blake, the forgotten heiress, hides her power behind a fake scar, her medical skills a deadly secret. Swapped at birth, she fights for her truth and her dying sister. Jack Sterling, a ruthless billionaire, battles pain only Ella can soothe. Their explosive bond, built on lies, fuels a dangerous game of lust and betrayal as Jack's control tightens.

Just when Ella's ready to crush her sister, a shocking truth drops: she was pregnant and had a child. As her world shatters, will this secret tear her and Jack apart—or bind them in unthinkable ways? Read now to uncover the truth!

I was falsely accused of killing my sister. My husband personally sent me to prison. Three years later, he picked me up, and that very night he stripped off my clothes and fucked me brutally.

He said, "The child your sister and I had together has a heart condition. You have to give birth to a baby to save him. This is what you owe your sister!"

"Si... Sienna, you're drunk..." he rasps.
"Nope." I smile. "I know exactly what I'm doing. And... I've always wanted this."
"I've had a crush on you since forever... so I can never be wrong."
I never expected that crashing at my best friend's family lake house while her parents were away would lead to something forbidden. Her father—the man I'd known all my life—became the center of a night I couldn't resist. The attraction between us ignited into a dangerous, consuming connection that left me trembling until dawn. I slipped away quietly in the morning, hoping to forget and avoid him entirely.
But fate had other plans. Soon, I found him sitting across from me as my new boss. Every glance, every word carried an unspoken tension, a power struggle I couldn't escape. I tried to resist, but the pull between us was irresistible. In the privacy of my office, I indulged in the memory of that night, testing boundaries, surrendering to desire while he watched and controlled, reminding me who held the power.
Eventually, the line between defiance and submission, punishment and reward, blurred. And just when I thought our secret was safe... his daughter walked in, shattering everything.

"I, King Logan, rejects you；Audrey Chadwick, as my mate, Luna to the Royal Moon pack, and Queen to the werewolf race."

No no no!

The Chadwick Lineage have had a generation of powerful werewolves, but so far, Audrey was the most powerful of them all. She possessed insane abilities and strength, that went hand in hand with her arrogance and great beauty. Fueled by the wrong kind of parenting, Audrey would do anything for power. Audrey sets her sights on becoming the next Queen of the werewolf kingdom, but she can only achieve that if she marries Prince Sebastian, and helps him steal the throne from his weak and wolfless older brother; Logan.

Very determined to get the mission done, Audrey sojourns to the palace, only to meet the shock of her life!! Prince Logan is her fated mate! The very same weak and wolfless Prince she planned on ousting.Unbeknownst to Audrey, Logan is going to be the greatest creature to ever grace the supernatural world.

This is a story of betrayal, redemption, and true love. Follow Audrey on her story, as Logan rapidly changes the course of her life, and leaves her fighting for a second chance with him.

Walking in on her husband with her own sister should have destroyed her. But Steffy doesn't fall apart-she slaps him and walks out.
What does break her is the DNA test her sister waves in her face. Not a Willson. Not their blood. Not their daughter.
Steffy has lived twenty-seven years in a family that may not be hers, while her sister claws for an inheritance she believes is rightfully hers alone.
But the deeper Steffy digs into the truth of who she really is, the more the wrong questions start getting answered.
Because if that DNA test was wrong about her... then who in this family is actually who they claim to be?

“Mate is back,” Cyan retorted with excitement in her voice. “Let's go see mate, Evie; let's go see him.” She urged.

“We'll see him tomorrow during the ceremony,” I replied.

“What if he doesn't know you anymore? Aren't you at least curious about his looks?” she retorted.

She had a point, though; it's been ten whole years since I last saw him, and I'll be turning eighteen tomorrow, which is the perfect time to get a mate. I stood there contemplating between going to bed or satisfying my curiosity.

After much thought, Cyan won. I turned sharply, heading for Kieran's room. Even though it was just a glimpse of him as he slept, that would be okay, I thought.

I climbed through the walls, peeping through the window, but was met with great darkness. I stepped into the room, scrutinizing through the darkness until I found the switch, taking back my full shape, leaving me with ripped and torn clothes. I turned on the lights as my eyes danced through every corner of the room.

I felt my shoulders slump in defeat as nothing had changed; the room remained untouched, as the surfaces were filled with dust. The only thing that changed was the sheets. The beautifully colored sheets I had placed the last time I came here to clean had been changed into a sparkling white one.

I turned around in disappointment about leaving when I felt an intimidating presence behind me.

“Looking for someone?” A husky voice echoed, making me freeze. “You're trespassing, little wolf; care to explain why?” he added in a stern voice. I inhaled sharply, the rich scent of Bourbon filling my lungs. My eyes widened in shock.

"You and I know she can never conceive. Not in this world, not in the next!"
"What if she mysteriously gets pregnant again?"
"Well, the company that manufactures the drug we fed her back then hasn't gone extinct. She will simply lose it like she lost the first..."
She was never meant to be his Luna, only his mistake.
On the night of Alpha Kael's ascension, one drunken error changed everything. Mistaking Aria, a mere maid, for his fiancée, he spent the night with her and sealed a fate neither of them could undo. What was meant to remain a secret didn't stay buried for long. When Aria discovered she was pregnant, the truth spread through the pack like wildfire, destroying Kael's engagement to his true love, Vivienne. Heartbroken and consumed by rage, the once warm Alpha turned cold, cruel, and unforgiving.
Forced to take responsibility, Kael claimed Aria as his mate and made her Luna. But to him, she was nothing more than a living reminder of his greatest mistake. When tragedy struck and Aria lost her child, Kael's words cut deeper than any blade: "Why should I mourn a mistake?"
Still, Aria clung to hope, believing that one day, giving him an heir might earn her his love.
Until the day everything shattered. On the day Aria discovered she was pregnant again, the woman who was supposed to be his Luna returned. And she didn't come alone. She was carrying his heir too. And hers wasn't a mistake.

Alex Lee has spent three months watching Elias Reed from across library aisles and lecture halls, too terrified to speak. When the campus launches an anonymous Valentine’s letter program, Alex finally finds the courage to tell Elias everything he’s been feeling, one unsigned letter at a time.
Elias Reed is weeks away from graduation and convinced he’s better off alone. After a devastating breakup left him feeling like he was too much to love, he’s built walls nobody can climb. Until anonymous letters start arriving in his mailbox, letters that see him in ways nobody else does, letters that make him feel found.
As February unfolds in a blur of snow and roses and secret confessions, Alex and Elias build an intimacy through words that neither has found in person. They pass each other on campus, strangers separated by fear and time and the carefully constructed distance Alex maintains. But the closer they get on paper, the harder it becomes to hide in the safety of anonymous ink.
When Valentine’s Day forces Alex to choose between revealing himself and losing Elias forever, he discovers that the hardest part of love isn’t finding it. It’s being brave enough to let yourself be seen.
A story about the words we write when we’re too afraid to speak. About loving someone from a distance and learning that sometimes the person you’ve been searching for has been watching you all along.

He is a vampire. She is a witch.
He has lived for thousands of years.
She is only thirty.
But her blood is both a cure for vampirism and a deadly poison.


‎A doctor cursed to die at thirty-two enters a contract with a 1,300 year-old vampire to break the curse and rewrite her fate. She discovers she isn't who she thinks she was. She's the most powerful witch, a Dagon, and she's the weapon that could kill him.

High-school misfit Julian fell in over his head into a relationship doomed for dysfunction. When the love of your life turns out to be a polyamorous vampire, eternity together is bound to be a messy rollercoaster, but even after all the trauma and heartbreak, this one of a kind devil still holds his heart. If only Luc shared his devotion... He certainly shares his obsession.

“Your girlfriend’s pretty cynical, now isn’t she?” Luc speaks into my ear, leaning casually on my shoulder. I blush bright red, and his smile grows all the broader.
He takes both our hands and leads us off across the dance floor, and the crowd parts for him like he’s the King of England - the bouncers steering away anyone that tries to block us.
“Holy shit. You really are the owner?!” Heather drunkenly shouts, as we make our way up the stairs and into that VIP booth.
“My club and my right to lay claim to anyone who catches my eye,” Luc drawls, and I shoot him a look, shifting my weight to get in between him and Heather.
“Look, you can’t just… I mean, thanks for the drinks, but she is not going to…” God I sound like an idiot, and staring straight in Luc’s eyes I feel more than a little intimidated, especially because he is not intimidated by me whatsoever. He’s smiling like I’ve just gifted him a shiny new present. I turn to tell Heather we should go, and Luc catches my arm.
“I wasn’t trying to steal away your date,” he laughs. “I invited the both of you here, now didn’t I?” He pushes a hand through Heather’s hair, turning boldly to face her dreamy eyed gawking. “You ever had a three way?”

Cassette Winfield never wanted war. She just wanted an apology. But when the new transfer student and hockey captain dents her car, and laughs it off. Cassette refuses to back down and accidentally paints a target on her back. Overnight she becomes the school’s favorite punchline ,humiliated in hallways, on screens and online. Marvin Woods thrives on attention . As the golden boy of the hockey team and the coach’s favorite he is used to winning. To him Cassey is just another problem to crash. But she doesn’t break. As the rivalry escalates and the whole school chooses sides. Cassey discovered that standing her ground comes with a price and unexpected allies. Especially Marvin’s quiet twin, who watches from the sidelines with unreadable eyes and a dangerous curiosity . In a a school where popularity is power and enemies wear hockey jackets, one girl refuses to shrink ….even if it costs her everything .

“Please, Nepheia, just forgive us. We’re family.”

I once believed those words meant something.

After being betrayed by the Fatasleigh family, abandoned on an island, publicly ruined, and locked away to sign over everything I owned, I finally learned the truth: to them, I was never a daughter—only an asset.

Then fate gave me another chance.

This time, I refuse to beg for love, approval, or a place at their table. I will reclaim what was stolen from me and uncover the secrets behind my mother’s inheritance, Mina’s mysterious past, and the family that destroyed my life.

But just when I begin cutting every tie to my old world, Seriomel, the feared and immensely powerful man of the Leneaux family, steps between me and everyone who wants me broken.

He says he is protecting me.

But why does it feel like he knows the truth about my past… and why did he choose me?

My magic has always been a little unpredictable.
Singing cinnamon rolls? Normal.
A judgmental broom? Happens all the time.
Accidentally turning my fated mate into a fox five minutes before opening my bakery for the Harvest Festival?
That's a first.
As if that wasn't bad enough, my fated mate turns out to be the impossibly handsome Lord of the Autumn Court. Before I can figure out how to change him back, half the village decides I cursed him on purpose to settle an old family grudge, and suddenly the Autumn Court guards are hunting me.
Now my bakery has been abandoned, my reputation is in ruins, and I'm fleeing across the realm with one very sarcastic fox tucked beneath my cloak.
Unfortunately, sharing a journey with my grumpy little fox is becoming far more dangerous than the guards chasing us. Because every mile we travel, every campfire we share, and every impossible moment we survive together makes one thing painfully clear...
Falling in love with my fated mate was never supposed to happen while he still had four paws and a tail.

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery! The author did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side that is so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. 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) ONCE STALKED is book #9 in the bestselling Riley Paige mystery series, which begins with the #1 bestseller ONCE GONE (Book #1)—a free download with over 900 five star reviews! When two soldiers are found dead on a huge military base in California, apparently killed by gunshot, military investigators are stumped. Who is killing its soldiers, inside the secure confines of its own base?And why?The FBI is called in, and Riley Paige is summoned to take the lead. As Riley finds herself immersed in the military culture, she is amazed to realize that serial killers can strike even here, in the midst of the most secure location on earth.She finds herself in a frantic cat and mouse chase, racing to decode the killer’s psychology. Yet she soon discovers she is up against a highly-trained killer, one that may, even for her, be too deadly an opponent.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE STALKED is book #9 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #10 in the Riley Paige series will be available soon.

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery! The author did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side that is so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. 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)Women are being murdered in upstate New York, their bodies found mysteriously hanging in chains. With the FBI called in, given the bizarre nature of the murders—and the lack of any clues—there is only one agent they can turn to: Special Agent Riley Paige.Riley, reeling from her last case, is reluctant to take on a new one, since she is still convinced a former serial killer is out there, stalking her. She knows, though, that her ability to enter a serial killer’s mind and her obsessive nature is what will be needed to crack this case, and she just can’t refuse—even if it will push her over the edge.Riley’s search takes her deep into a killer’s deluded mind as it leads her to orphanages, mental hospitals, prisons, all in an effort to understand the depth of his psychosis. Realizing she is up against a true psychopath, she knows time is short before he strikes again. But with her own job on the line and her own family a target, and with her fragile psyche collapsing, it may all be too much for her—and too late.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE TAKEN is book #2 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night.Book #3 in the Riley Paige series is also now available!

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery! The author did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side that is so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. 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) ONCE HUNTED is book #5 in the bestselling Riley Paige mystery series, which begins with the #1 bestseller ONCE GONE (Book #1)—a free download with over 600 five star reviews! A prison break from a maximum security prison. Frantic calls from the FBI. Special Agent Riley Paige’s worst nightmare has come true: a serial killer she put away years ago is loose. And his main target is her.Riley is used to being the one hunting, but for the first time, she finds herself—and her family—to be the ones being hunted. As the killer stalks her, he also begins a new rampage of kills, and Riley must stop him before it is too late—for the other victims, and for herself.But this is no ordinary killer. He is too smart, and their game of cat-and-mouse too twisted, and he somehow manages to elude her and always stay one step ahead. Desperate to stop him, Riley realizes there is only one way: she must delve back into the past, into this killer’s twisted mind, his old cases, and re-learn what drives him. The only way to stop him, she realizes, is to face the darkness she thought she had left behind.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE HUNTED is book #5 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #6 in the Riley Paige series will be available soon.

I thought I had the perfect husband—until I discovered he was cheating on me with my own stepsister.
Then I learned our marriage agreement was a lie, and Eric had secretly sabotaged my chances of becoming a mother while protecting Isabella.
I had trusted him, endured painful treatments, and believed we were building a future together.
Now, every promise felt like another cruel betrayal.
Heartbroken, I drowned my sorrows in whiskey and climbed into a stranger’s car, mistaking him for Eric.
But who was the mysterious man I spent the night with—and would Eric ever discover my secret?

Olivia Steele flees her oppressive stepfather, seeking refuge in an arranged marriage with Seth Brown, a man she's never met. Drawn in by Seth's striking looks and practical lifestyle, Liv wonders if this union could bring solace to her family. But as doubts creep in and Seth reveals his lack of intention, their marriage hangs in the balance. Can Liv find true love in a relationship born out of duty, or is she destined for a life of unfulfilled promises?

She thought his heart belonged to her, but he chose her sister.
Adriana Nox found her sister moaning beneath the man she was supposed to announce a relationship with that night.
The strong Adriana Nox broke at that moment and never healed.
She watched the man she had ever loved exchange vows with her sister— a disaster she never imagined would happen.
Not only was she betrayed by the ones she loved, but declared a villain and cast away by the same people she trusted.
But Adriana swore never to go down into the pit of fire alone. She would drag everyone down with her, including her beloved sister and the love of her life.

In the third year of my marriage to Damian Spencer, I accidentally scratched his first love.
For that insignificant little scratch, on the evening of my birthday, he personally brought his bodyguards and cornered me in a damp, cold alley.
Without flinching, he had them crush my right hand—the one that held my bow—bone by bone.
He looked down at me coldly as I slumped in the mud, his voice devoid of any warmth: "Just be a good Mrs. Spencer. You don't need this anymore."
Yet later, this same man caged me in his arms like someone possessed, begging again and again—pleading with me not to forget what we'd been.
But all that met him was my empty gaze—hollow, confused, as if he were no one to me.

Fourteen years. I guarded every line on the East Coast for Victoria's crime family. Six weeks. A young newcomer took away every ounce of my authority. Victoria said, "There's no need to be so sensitive." I understood her choice. I took off my ring in the council chamber, and walked away.

On Christmas Eve, a mysterious virus swept the globe, and my own father mutated into a bloodthirsty monster right before my eyes.

Retreating to a Texas ranch, I thought it would be a desperate fight for survival—until a monster tore my arm open during a brutal melee. There was no high fever, no mutation. Instead, the moment those frenzied infected caught the scent of my blood, they trembled and backed away, as if encountering their natural predator.

Before I could even catch my breath, an armored convoy bearing a cryptic insignia surrounded the ranch, using sonic weapons to herd the infected horde.

From a distance, a red laser locked precisely between my eyes. The memories forcibly erased during my military service two years ago came crashing back: this apocalypse was never a natural disaster, and I was the "perfect specimen" they were absolutely determined to claim.

Want to turn me into a lab rat? Then let's see how many of you this modified body can drag down to hell with me!

Ever since the day I was born, my parents blamed me for every stroke of bad luck that befell our family, calling me a cursed child.
In my past life, when I became pregnant, a child’s whisper began ringing inside my head, and time after time, I chose to trust it.
The first time, I listened to its warning and blocked my parents’ phone numbers. That decision led to them dying in a horrific car crash while trying to reach me.
The second time, seduced by its words, I rushed to a hotel to catch my husband cheating, only to crash a crucial meeting and ruin his multi-million-dollar deal, leaving an unbridgeable fracture in our marriage.
The third time, that gentle voice persuaded me to sign the divorce papers, walk away penniless, and foolishly wait for my husband to come back to me.
In the end, I landed in prison, gave birth in a cold cell, and met a miserable death.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of my pregnancy checkup.

"We're done, Arthur."

That was how I ended a ten-year relationship with my childhood sweetheart.

He didn't take it seriously. He just smirked and asked, "How many days is this tantrum going to last? Three? A week?"

Then, his phone lit up. It was her—the helpless scholarship student he had been protecting.

"I'm on my way," he promised her softly, turning his back on me without a second thought.

He walked away, assuming I would always be his safety net.

What he didn't realize was that my answer was forever.

Ten years of being his fool, and I was finally cutting the cord.

My mother gave me her kidney. The price was my husband.
As the orderlies wheeled me toward surgery, Mom gripped my hand and begged through her tears: “Promise me you'll divorce Ansel. Your sister needs him.”
My husband had already signed the papers. “Give me one year,” he said. “Once Tam's back on her feet, we'll get remarried.”
I survived the operation. I signed away my marriage. Then I vanished to London without a word.
Four years later, I walk into my old tailor's shop in Chicago and run straight into the happy family: my ex, my parents, and my very pregnant little sister. They're sure I've come crawling back. They're sure I'm still bitter, still alone, still desperate for the man they handed to her.
So when I tell them I'm married now, they laugh. When I tell them my husband and daughter just landed at O'Hare, they call me a liar.
And when they decide to lock me away “for my own good,” they're about to find out exactly whose family they just declared war on.

Thirty thousand feet in the air, inside the sealed cabin of a commercial airliner, my five-year-old daughter vanished into thin air while I took a thirty-minute nap.
I tore through the lavatories, the galleys, and every overhead bin. The only thing I found was her stuffed bunny, the one she never let out of her sight.
What was even more terrifying was the crew and the passengers. As if perfectly rehearsed, they all insisted I had boarded the plane alone. They even gaslit me in front of everyone, claiming I was mentally unstable and had hallucinated a daughter.
They took turns pushing me, trying to force me into self-doubt and submission. Not a single person offered to help me look. The entire plane was covering up a sinister crime.
If this plane was going to hide my child and protect the guilty, then I would tear this hypocritical aircraft apart with my bare hands.

My betrothed, Theron, gave me a unicorn — the highest honor our court could grant a lady.
I had it hitched to a dung cart and sent through the lower city.
Only because I had lived this life before.
Last time, I was proud of that creature. I rode it to every hunt, every procession, and people said no beast so pure had ever chosen a rider. My light was the brightest among the elves. Then, season by season, it went out. I withered, I burned away in my own bed, and everyone wept over how strangely the great Lady Eldraine had aged.
I thought it was some illness. I begged every healer in the realm. None of them found a thing.
I only learned the truth after I died.
My spirit watched a girl climb out of that unicorn's body. Elowen. The pale, dying little thing the whole court called a saint — and the woman Theron had wanted all along. She was wearing my light now — my glow, my color, my stolen years. She was radiant. She was alive. And she was in Theron's arms, where I used to stand.
"The binding held," she whispered to him. "Every time she rode me, I drank a little more. Her light. Her magic. Her life. It's all mine now."
Theron didn't even glance at my body. "She gave you her life," he said. "She should be glad."
So I laughed, when I woke again on the morning he led that unicorn into the hall.

The Moon Goddess may have fated him to be my mate, but fate clearly had a cruel sense of humor—because Alpha Eddy was never the type to settle down. Women clung to him like shadows, and he never once turned them away.

Before our bond could even form, he wrapped his arms around me and fed me the same excuse he always did.

"Carol, the healer says it’s congenital. I can't help it. Being with them is... just a way to protect you from getting hurt."

I cried. I begged. I screamed. But the carousel of beautiful women in his life never stopped spinning.

Then came the breaking point.

On a so-called business trip, Alpha Eddy heroically rescued three sisters who were cornered by Rogues. Instead of sending them back to their pack—or literally anywhere else—he brought them straight into our home. Not just anywhere in the Red Tree tribe's castle, but into the Luna’s chambers. My chambers.

When I questioned him, his response made my stomach turn.

Three years ago, I was the sole surviving legendary mage of Ash Valley. To fulfill my comrade's dying wish, I married into the Robert family, becoming a despised and bullied son-in-law . For three years, I endured torment and humiliation; my entire family treated me like trash . My wife handed me divorce papers , then accepted the marriage proposal of a nobleman. On my wedding day, I walked into the hall in old clothes, and everyone laughed, thinking I was crazy. Until I shattered all magic with a wave of my hand, my legendary presence overwhelming everyone present, the woman who had once despised me finally cried and asked me: Why did you lie to me?

In my last life, a friend I’d trusted for ten years drove a knife into my heart over a single biscuit. When I opened my eyes again, we had both been reborn—right before the extreme freeze arrived.

He was convinced the apocalypse had come. He borrowed from loan sharks, rented a massive warehouse to hoard supplies, and even crowned himself king during the icebound period, killing without mercy.

But he didn’t know the truth:

This disaster would end completely after only thirty days.

While he taunted me like a madman, I didn’t expose him. I calmly requested thirty days of paid leave from my company.

This time, I’ll sit in a warm, climate-controlled room and watch—when the state machine restarts on day thirty—how he drops to his knees and sobs in despair.

I straighten up after three back-to-back all-nighters, my stomach aching so badly I can barely stand up straight. At one in the morning, I head to the twenty-four-hour diner below my studio for a bowl of soup, just to keep myself going.

Steam rises off the bowl, and when I look up, my blood goes cold.

Beckett Wexford, my husband, head of the Wexford Group and a man with a serious germ phobia, sits right there, completely out of place in this greasy late-night diner.

He patiently picks the onions out of her burger, one piece at a time, while the girl next to him laughs, bright and carefree, her profile eerily close to what mine looked like at twenty.

"Beckett, you're so bad at this. It's just an onion."

The man who's been ice cold to me for years has a look in his eyes I've never seen before, soft, doting, like she's something precious to him.

"Hold on, almost done."

Eight years of marriage, and I turned myself into some neurotic housekeeper. Turns out all that tenderness was just going somewhere else.

I pull out my phone and open the divorce agreement I drafted a while ago.

Eight years. It's time to get myself out of this.

The very day she came back into her home country, she heard the most absurd news. "Your sister is getting married with Mr. Stephenson".
"What did you say?" She couldn't believe it. At the engagement party, she was shocked to see her sister getting engaged to her fiancé.
"Daniel, remember this, I dumped you! Did you hear that? I dumped you, not the other way round."
.....
Who could have guessed that after being betrayed by her fiancé and sister and being labelled as a home wrecker, someone would still want to marry her?
"Don't you want to get revenge on your fiancé for what he did?" Nathan Clemon asked Hilda.
"What has that got to do with you?" She snapped back.
"It has got everything to do with me. I am the only person who could help you achieve that whiles giving you the happiness that any woman would wish in this world."

He was supposed to be a stranger.

A bruised, scarred, filthy-mouthed stranger who pinned me against a bathroom wall and made me forget the boy who broke my heart 20 minutes earlier.

I walked away first without his name or number, and I didn't look back.

Then I found out my mom was engaged. To his dad.

Rhys Maddox. Number seventeen. 6'3" of tattoos, bruised knuckles, and the kind of jaw that makes good girls do stupid things. The most dangerous player to ever step on our ice.

My one-night stand.

My new stepbrother.

He doesn't follow rules - he breaks them. On the ice. In my bed. Against every surface in our parents' house while they eat twenty feet away. He calls me "sis" just to watch me squirm. He watches me like he already owns me.

And the worst part? He does.

Publicly, we're fake dating - a deal to keep my ex-bestfriend away. Privately, we're a stepbrother and stepsister who can't keep our clothes on the second we're alone. It's our biggest secret.

Now the boy who I once considered my best friend suddenly wants me back. And the stepbrother who wasn't supposed to mean anything won't let me go.

One wants to protect me.
One wants to destroy me.
And I can't tell which is which anymore.


For readers 18+ who like their men possessive, their romances FORBIDDEN, and their chapters dripping with filthy, unapologetic spice.

"Sign the papers, Gadreel. Consider it my anniversary gift to you—our divorce."
For five years, Ivory Remington played the perfect wife. She nursed her comatose husband back to health, endured his family’s disdain, and smiled through the rumors that she was just a placeholder for his beloved stepsister. But when Gadreel awakens—only to coldly declare their marriage a business arrangement—Ivory’s last shred of hope shatters.
On the night of their anniversary, a vicious video arrives: Gadreel and her stepsister, tangled in sheets that should’ve been theirs.
Enough.
Ivory files for divorce with a parting shot that strikes his ego where it hurts most.


"You dare call me impotent?" He drags her against him, his breath hot on her lips.
"Let me remind you exactly what your husband is capable of."

Five years of marriage, and he never once looked at me with love. He called me a gold digger. He forced me to take birth control. And on our last night together, he moaned another woman's name in my ear.
I left with nothing but my dignity—and a secret I didn't even know I was carrying.
Six years later, I'm back. Not as the doormat wife he discarded, but as an award-winning scientist with a five-year-old son and a powerful family behind me. He's still engaged to his precious first love. And neither of them knows that the little boy calling me "Mommy" has his eyes.
He wants me back. He says he regrets everything.
But regret doesn't undo the past. And this time, I'm playing by my own rules.

"We literally just met. Don’t you think a flash marriage is moving a little fast?" said Michael, a blind date arranged by my mother.
"People get married quick all the time now," I shot back. "We could get the paperwork done, take time to actually get to know each other. If it works out, great. If not, we divorce."
He smiled. "Alright. Then let’s try it."

Sarah Martinez works as a restaurant server. Haunted by fragmented memories of a past she can’t fully recall, she’s desperate to escape her mother’s constant worry about her future. When she meets Michael Johnson, a man who seems to be the perfect solution to her problems, she impulsively proposes marriage.
However, Michael is not who he appears to be. He’s a man of power and wealth. When Sarah mistakes him for her mother’s arranged blind date, he decides to play along, intrigued by her sincerity and the possibility of a marriage free from the gold-diggers he’s used to.
Their marriage starts as a practical arrangement, but as they navigate their new life together, feelings begin to blur the lines of their agreement.

Will Sarah discover Michael’s true identity? Can Michael trust Sarah’s intentions, or is she just another woman after his wealth? And what will happen when Sarah’s ex, a Hollywood star, tries to win her back?