6986 Book(s) Related to the sunless bride

My daughter has been blind since birth. On her eighteenth birthday, she finally received news of a matching cornea donor.
Our whole family was so excited we couldn't sleep that night. My husband and daughter eagerly prepared for the surgery, their hearts filled with hope that she would soon see the light.
But I suddenly slammed my hand on the table and, amidst the family's stunned gazes, proposed a divorce on the spot.
My husband's face turned ashen as he demanded harshly, "You want a divorce just because I'm going through with our daughter's surgery?"
I curled the corner of my mouth and enunciated every word: "That's right. Because you're going through with her surgery—this marriage is over."

Just before my wedding, my fate mate, my Alpha fiancé, Micheal, stripped me of my wedding dress—our wedding dress—and handed it to his mistress, Becky Porter.
Not only that, but he locked me in the dressing room like some rabid wolf he needed to contain.
"Becky has a terminal illness.She just wants to experience being a bride before she dies."
I lunged forward, my wolf howling inside me. Alpha's strength pressed against mine, his dominance forcing my muscles to lock. My claws twitched, itching to break free.
"You bastard!" I snarled, my breath ragged.
Micheal barely blinked. Instead, he let out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head .
"She’s dying, and you can’t even show a little compassion?" His tone dripped with disappointment, as if I were the villain here. "You’re only losing a wedding, but Becky… Becky is losing her dreams and her life."

I suddenly awakened the ability to read minds. But I heard my fiancé, Joey Jones, mocking me in his mind: He had already arranged for an assassin to “send me off” at our wedding in the church. What was even more disgusting was that he promised I would become the Donna of the Jones family, but in his heart, he was fixated on his stepmother, Rory—his father’s widow, who was only a few years older than him.
With only three days left until the wedding, I no longer cried or begged for love. Instead, I contacted my first love, Nate, who was a police officer: “How about being the male lead at my wedding?”

“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: A FATAL FOLIO 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.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.But the odd shop, Alexis soon learns, is from more than just a rare, occult bookstore. Something strange is going on in the shop’s secret back room, with its eccentric owner, and in the small town itself.And when a dead body appears, Alexis, with her beloved newfound cat, may find herself right in the middle of it all.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)Books #2 and #3 in the series—MURDER BY MANUSCRIPT and A PERILOUS PAGE—are 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: 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 WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE 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.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.A cryptic visitor comes into town, looking for a rare book, and willing to pay anything.But when he ends up dead, Alexis wonders: was the price too high?And did Alexis’s mysterious store owner have anything to do with it?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 PERILOUS PAGE 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)

“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)

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.

She never saw it coming. After five years of marriage, it took a DNA test to blow everything up.

The son she raised from birth? Her husband's kid with his ex. And somehow, both of them knew the whole time and said nothing.

It gets worse. She overheard her husband's actual plan: wait for the ex to come back, then push her out of the company "nicely" and hand her five million as a goodbye gift.

Five million? She single-handedly kept that company alive, pouring in her own money and connections to clean up his messes. And that's all she's worth?

She was done. She wanted everything back that was hers.

The ungrateful kid? She's over it. The husband chasing his first love? Good riddance.

But the moment she walked away for real, both of them came running back.

"Baby, please. Just give me one more chance."

She didn't even look up.

Ophelia was born the weakest wolf in the pack, mocked, beaten, and treated like nothing. All she ever dreamed of was the day the Moon Goddess would give her a mate who would love her despite her flaws.

But when her fated mate was revealed, he didn’t claim her. He crushed her.

“I, Alpha Dominic, reject you as my mate. You will never be my Luna.”

The words tore her apart, and the pack’s laughter sealed her fate. Cast out, abandoned, and left to die, she thought her story had ended.

But the broken girl they discarded rose. The weak omega become stronger than them all. And the Alpha who rejected her bow at her feet.

I am the lead architect of this massive virtual sandbox world.

To save my NPC wife from a fatal car crash, I enabled a cheat code for her and lied, claiming she was a "VIP player" paying to experience an immersive life-simulation game.

She bought it completely. Not only did she openly flaunt her wealth to buy off a male assistant in front of the whole company, but she also trampled all over me, treating me like a "low-level NPC."

"I am the absolute main character of this world, and the system will always bail me out. As for you, you're just a line of junk code. Get out of my sight immediately."

Watching her face become twisted and arrogant from the illusion of privilege, the last trace of warmth in my eyes completely died out.

I calmly signed my resignation, revoked all her financial shields and vitality armor with a single click, then logged off and returned to the real world.

I knew that the moment I left, stripped of my protection, she would be instantly swallowed alive by the brutal laws of survival.

In her past life, Serena stopped her brother's kidney donation and bore the blame for every family heartbreak that followed.
Reborn, she watches him willingly throw away his promising basketball career to save his lover—and she walks away.
When fate abandons her brother and her family tears itself apart, Serena carves out a brilliant, unapologetic life for herself.

Three years ago, I exhausted everything I had in the Abyss Game to save my critically ill wife.
Three years later, my wife and her lover became an inseparable pair in the Abyss Game. To save their own lives, they used my only sister as a substitute, sending her to a dangerous situation where she was devoured by ghouls.
They thought I had lost everything and could be humiliated at will.
But when I chose to accept becoming the master of the Abyss Game, why did they suddenly kneel down and beg for mercy?

On our first wedding anniversary, I walked into my husband's office and found him having sex with my best friend.

He didn't even apologize. Instead, claiming he was disgusted that I hadn't produced an heir in a year of marriage, he threw divorce papers in my face.

Five years later, I returned to New York with my new husband—Cassian Vitiello, the Godfather of the North American underworld.

Vincent ran into me at the docks. He handed me a business card, offering me a job as a nanny for his mistress's son.

What he didn't know was that the woman he was mocking was now the Donna—the woman the entire East Coast underground feared.

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.

The world thought I was a broken man after rotting in the Abyss for five years. Even Moretti, the wealthiest mogul in Cold Harbor, dared to point a finger at my nose and demand I kneel.
He razed my estate, seized my daughter, and humiliated my past on a city-wide livestream.
What he didn’t know was that the moment his infrared scanners locked onto me, I had already initiated the sequence for a dormant orbital satellite that had been sleeping above us for five years.
When the skyscraper turns to ash, the man kneeling before me won’t be that arrogant tycoon—only a trembling corpse.
After all, in this city, I don’t believe in reason. I only believe in retribution.

In the Dragon Empire, bloodline determined everything. Only a female capable of hatching royal-grade golden dragons could wear the crown.
In my past life, I was nothing but a Red Drake—bottom of the food chain, not even blessed with wings. Yet after marrying into the royal family, I miraculously hatched a pureblooded Golden Hatchling.
But when my husband Valerius ascended to the Dragon Throne, his first act as king was to rip out my dragon crystal with his bare claws.
My own son Draken then ordered my body hacked to pieces and fed to the Abyssal Carrion Wolf-Lions in the depths below.
All of this because my half-sister had faked a bloodline awakening, transforming herself overnight into a so-called "Sacred Crystal Dragon."
My cruel husband had looked down at me with utter contempt: "Without my noble genes, how could something like you possibly birth such a gifted golden pureblood? Your filthy swamp bloodline has no right to the Queen's throne."
My son's disgust cut even deeper: "I don't want a flightless cripple for a mother. You make me sick. Only someone as noble and beautiful as Seraphina deserves to be my mother—she'd never force me to practice boring magic like you did."
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back at the Empire's quinquennial Bonding Ceremony.
My husband wasted no time choosing my sister as his mate. My son, Draken, eagerly dove his soul into her womb, ready to be reborn.
But this time, what crawled out of that egg was a Blind Mud Runt.

My biological parents and my fiancé shove me into a sterile room for a forced drug trial. The chemicals completely destroy my cranial nerves.

They lie about my adopted sister Mia having a terminal illness, using my college admission and trust fund as leverage to make me sacrifice myself.

I used to put my life on the line for Liam, staying up all night to finish his homework, draining everything I had to please my family.

But they are putting on an act from the very beginning. Mia isn't sick. The drug trial is just a front for money laundering.

Stripped of all love, hate, and empathy, I am left with only cold logic after enduring imprisonment, beatings, and endless injections.

Afterward, Liam falls to his knees, sobbing and begging to get back together. I dodge his touch with a blank face.

"Don't come near me. The smell of you makes me physically sick."

When my own family and fated mate forced me to leap into the abyss, I did not hesitate.
"You wicked woman, why don't you just die?" My brother Carl pointed at the cliff and roared. "Jump into the Abyss of Sin and atone before the Moon Goddess!"
My fated mate, Enzo, looked at me coldly. "You owe Lilith this."
They expected me to kneel and beg as I had so many times before, insisting that I had never harmed my adopted sister.
Instead, I simply nodded.
Under their horrified gazes, I threw myself over the edge. My body vanished into the silver flames below and turned to ash in an instant.
They did not know this was the seventh obedience contract I had made with the Moon Goddess.
Once I completed seven acts of absolute obedience, I could sever my old bonds and be reborn.
Goodbye, my family—the people I once would have died for.

The more I cry, the hornier my sister gets.

Not a metaphor. Stone cold reality. Me and pop superstar Melody share a sick "emotional link" — the worse I suffer, the more she glows on stage.

My husband Christian discovered this secret.

Then he chose to betray me and crawl into bed with Melody.

Now every time Melody has a big show, Christian locks me in the basement, force-feeds me depression pills, and blasts horror movies 24/7 until I'm totally broken.

My despair gets fed straight into Melody's energy, making her perform like she's possessed.

Tonight they're fucking to celebrate her win. Tomorrow's concert means draining me dry again.

Enough!

If my pain is your sex drug, I'm cutting off the supply completely.

I'm going to the medical center to freeze myself for one full year.

Let you two horny bastards screw each other to death!

BLURB

My breath hitched, my chest heaving as Salvatore's finger thrust into my pussy. I clenched my teeth, my fingers squeezing the bedsheets as I shamelessly parted my legs even wider.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was a low growl.

“No,” I breathed. “Faster…please,” I moaned loudly.

I knew Salvatore's and my attraction to each other was forbidden; he was the heir to a wealthy family, and I was just a maid in his house. But I have had an attraction to him since I met him and couldn't control it.

We both couldn't.


Lyra Whitman is from a poor home and has faced constant bullying in school. She and her mother finally moved away to a new city, where they her mother works as a maid for the Sinclair's, one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the county.

Lyra cannot help but fall for their son, and she is surprised to see that he feels the same. Knowing the dangers of being together due to their different backgrounds, they are forced to navigate their relationship in secret.

For the three years since I returned to the Hart family, I had always been the wildly out-of-place “burden.”

Vivienne, the family’s beloved fake heiress, broke a contract on her own and provoked a local gang. She was taken hostage and tortured in an abandoned auto repair shop.

To save his precious sister, my brother, Ryan, did not hesitate to trade me to the gang in exchange for Vivienne.
“She’s a movie star, and you’re just a useless nobody. It’s only natural for you to take her place and suffer a little.”
He looked coldly at the gang members who were eyeing me like hungry wolves, and violently shoved me toward them.
“Tonight, she belongs to you.”

Right before they dragged me away, I managed to call my husband, Alex, begging for help. But he rejected me ruthlessly, acting as if my plea was some cheap scam:
“Stop playing the victim. Why would they ever hurt you? Hurry up and clean up this mess. Don't let a girl like Vivienne face those thugs all by herself.”

Bang.
The heavy iron doors of the gang’s hideout slammed shut.
There were no negotiations. What greeted me was a merciless rain of fists, my clothes brutally torn to shreds, and the blinding flashes of cameras.
Amidst the ultimate degradation, they took photos of me, pinched my jaw, and violated my dignity over and over again.

At 4:00 AM, I was tossed out onto the street in front of my own house like a piece of discarded trash.
Upon dragging myself inside, Vivienne immediately began dropping hints to the family, implying that I was the one who tricked her into signing the illegal gang contract.
My family cursed me, telling me to drop dead.
My heart plummeted into a bottomless abyss of darkness. Numbly swallowing the bloody foam pooling in my mouth, I let out a hoarse, broken laugh.

“Since my return was a mistake from the very beginning…”
“Then why didn’t they just let me die?”

I am a hero. The saint's husband.
A country boy chosen by the temple.
I fight, I fight, I fight.
All for the saint, for the temple.
But it wasn't until I was drained of blood and dying on the altar that I finally heard clearly what the saint and her childhood sweetheart were saying:
"If you become a hero and marry the saint, you'll have to surrender your soul to the temple. I don't want you to lose your soul."
"Then let's just find some country boy to be the hero. It won't matter if he dies."
Oh, so that's how it is.
You should have said so earlier.
I can defeat the Demon Lord just fine without the saint.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the wedding ceremony.
This time, someone else should be on the altar.

On the third day of the outbreak, I sat in my company’s executive conference room, gripping the red toy car I bought for my six-year-old son.

Outside the door were zombies filling the building. Beside me were six executives still breathing only because I was.

They wanted meetings. They wanted to wait for rescue. They wanted to chain me with morality.

But I wanted one thing—my son was still in daycare. Three days. No one went for him.

At dawn, I opened the door they’d barricaded shut.

I can shoot. I can clear a path. I will carve my way through to bring him back.

Anyone who stands in my way dies.

In my previous life, I chose the werewolf and gave birth to the Arbiter, only to be burned alive by the younger sister I loved most.
When I was reborn, I knelt before the Oath Stone, handed my marriage pact to her, and watched her gloat in triumph before choosing Sylas, the elf everyone else avoided.
Everyone was waiting to see me make a fool of myself—until the day of the wedding, when he came carrying a gown blessed by the Sacred Tree, lowered his eyes to me, and said, "In this life, I will never fail you."

Silver poisoning struck, and my mother's life hung by a thread.
I knelt and begged my partner Selene to use the 100,000 gold coins from our war spoils to purchase Moonlight Holy Water, but she coldly refused with a sneer: "An ordinary silver poison patient isn't worth wasting resources on." She then turned and spent 80,000 coins on a necklace for her male lover.
My mother died in my arms as I ground my teeth and swallowed my tears of blood.
But when the patrol came to collect the body, she finally discovered—the one sent to be buried deep in the mass grave wasn't my mother at all, but her own biological mother.
She had personally buried her own mom!

The chieftainess returned from the poisonous fog with a swollen belly.
She announced that she carried the child of a god—a child who would bring hope to the entire base.
Only I knew that what she bore was no divine offspring, but a demon that would devour every soul in the base.
Because in my previous life, I was the one it had gnawed to death, alive...

At 17, I saved William from the black market.
At 22, he crossed half the globe to marry me with two million dollars.
I built his empire for him, turning him into the biggest arms dealer in the Americas.
Then Karen appeared, and our seven years turned to ashes.
I finally saw the truth:
The roses he gave me were the ones Karen had rejected.
His so-called love was nothing but a hypocritical act for money.
To him, I was just a prop for show, a tool for his business, and a machine for sex.

Six months ago, my parents started fostering a girl named Lila Mercer.
Six months ago, Mom repainted the guest room and strung fairy lights over the bed. My room still has the same furniture I've had since I was twelve.
Six months ago, Dad started coming home for Sunday dinner. Not for me. I'd been eating alone at the counter for years by then.
Six months ago, Mom posted a photo of the two of them at the farmers market. Caption: our family is growing. I saw it during third period and locked my phone hard enough to crack the case.
So when I picked up the family iPad tonight and a notification popped up from an app I didn't recognize, I wasn't shocked. Just tired of being right.
The app was called Beacon.

I was dead, and the whole world was celebrating for my sister.

For twenty-two years, I had been the hardest-working but most invisible daughter in the Sterling family, forever living in the shadow of my gymnastics prodigy sister.

Running a high fever, I begged my family to take me to the hospital, only to hear: "Don't you DARE ruin Bella's award ceremony!"

When I was tricked into the abandoned equipment room and used my last breath to call my boyfriend while lying in a pool of blood, all I heard was: "Grace, quit the drama! Bella's accepting her award on stage!"

On stage, thunderous applause erupted as Bella lifted the "Young Gymnast of the Year" trophy.

And I drew my final breath.

When they returned home triumphant, thinking I had run away in a tantrum, they had no idea I was already dead right under their noses.

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.
She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

My stepsister and I tumbled down the stairs together. As someone with a blood clotting disorder, my spleen ruptured—I was bleeding internally, desperate for surgery to stop it.
But my mother—the renowned chief of surgery—pulled every specialist from the ER. To consult on my stepsister's condition.
All she had was a sprained ankle. Not even a scratch. Yet mom insisted on running every test in the book. And me? Left alone on that cold floor, bleeding out, half my body already soaked in blood.
I clutched at her pants, begging her to save me. But she kicked my hand away and looked at me with pure disgust.
"Lily, are you really so desperate for a man's attention that you'd pull a cheap stunt like this? Your sister's foot is swollen—and you have the nerve to fake your death here?"
In the end, I died alone in a corner of that ignored ER.
But when they wheeled my cold body out of the morgue—and they finally learned about my clotting disorder—
That mother who claimed to hate me completely lost her mind.

A short contemporary domestic-drama romance. Clean to sweet. Happily ever after.

My husband's family slid the folder across the table — sign here, family helps family, it's just a signature.

What they didn't know: I had almost three million dollars in an account none of them could find. I silenced the alert before the number could glow.

They think we're the broke ones. For four years they've bled the kindest man I know dry, dressing every demand up as love and cashing it. So I let them keep believing it — and I built a wall they will never see.

They're about to find out what happens when you spend a lifetime underestimating the quiet one.

And this time, I'm not the one who pays.

Three torturous years hauling bodies on the mortuary night shift, and I'd finally scraped together the cash for my brother Charles's heart transplant.
He just waved it off.
"My heart is fine. Mom and Dad didn't die in that gang war, either. I orchestrated the hit. You were the only casualty."
Nearby, my husband, Gerald, casually lit a cigar to deliver his own confession. "I never went bankrupt. 'Laying low' was just my excuse to avoid squeezing into that dingy funeral home dorm with you. I've been at the Long Island estate."
"I was going to punish you for another three years," Charles added, "but the stench of formaldehyde on you is nauseating. We couldn't take it anymore."
I froze, still clutching the credit card. Charles plucked the plastic from my numb fingers and shoved his phone screen in my face. A banking app stared back at me.
Balance: exactly zero.
"My name is still on the joint account," he sneered, tossing the card into the trash. "I drained it this morning. That blood money you made bagging stiffs is being handed out to street junkies as we speak. We'd never touch that filth."
Before the sheer absurdity of it could suffocate me, my parents walked in. Flanked by bodyguards, they kept their distance, eyeing me like a plague rat.
"You thought being the biological daughter gave you the right to ruthlessly bully Violet. We simply wanted to put you in your place."
"Swear you'll never cross Violet again, and you can remain a Falcone," my mother added coolly. "Otherwise, you're dead to us."
In the stifling silence that followed, my phone buzzed. A text from my oncologist.
[Mrs. Castello, the results are back. It's terminal. Do you consent to initiating the hospice and DNR protocols we discussed?]

The day my mother succumbed to complications during childbirth, her younger sister, Vanessa, wed my father.

Fifteen years later, I beheld my husband accompanying Vanessa as she tried on seductive lingerie.

In that moment, I understood—what she truly coveted was never my father, but rather all that my mother and I shared.

My mother perished during childbirth, a casualty of an illicit affair.

I vowed not to repeat that tragic cycle.

Then I returned home, removed my wedding ring, and left behind the divorce papers.

In a sleek design world split between polished appearances and buried cruelty, Mara Ellison has spent years trapped behind a voice no one wanted to hear. While her family rewrites her illness and her fiancé speaks over her in the name of love, stolen records, public humiliation, and old betrayals force her to reclaim her life. Quiet but cutting, this is a story of emotional abuse, identity theft, and hard-won selfhood—framed by rain-soaked streets, hospital corridors, cold glass conference rooms, and a woman finally stepping into the light with her own voice.

The day college decisions came out, my parents bought my twin sister a Porsche.
It was my eighteenth birthday too. Nobody brought it up. I stood in the doorway in my diner uniform while the whole room sang her name.
That night the four of them went out to dinner to celebrate her. The car only sat four, so my father handed me a hundred dollars and told me to order myself something at home.
Four days later, six thousand four hundred dollars vanished from my account. Two years of washing dishes, gone to her sorority dues. My mother's name was on the account, so it wasn't even illegal.
I didn't scream and I didn't beg. I went upstairs and clicked Accept on the full ride to MIT that had been sitting in my inbox for three days.
Nobody in that house ever wanted me. So I booked a one-way ticket, cut myself out of the family photo, and left my key on the shoe rack.
I wasn't coming back. Not for graduation. Not for any of them.

A horrific car crash left me paralyzed.
The doctors said I'd never walk again. With no family left, my Aunt Martha and Uncle Thomas took me to their isolated farmhouse.
They cared for me, promising their treatments would help me walk again. After everything I'd been through, I thought I'd finally found safety.
Until today, when the feeling in my legs suddenly came back—but something told me not to tell them.

They left me to freeze to death in our basement freezer.

The night before prom, my foster sister Leila came crying that I'd burned her Ivy League recommendation letter. My birth parents didn't even listen to one word of explanation—they threw me into that frozen hell in forty-five below.

I beat on that door until my fingers were shredded, screamed until my throat tore apart, but all I could hear from upstairs was their laughter celebrating Leila. Even Justin—the boy I'd loved since we were kids—texted calling me a fucking psycho.

As I drew my last breath, I heard Leila's soft voice outside the door: "Rest in peace, sister."

Now I'm a ghost, watching them lose their minds when the truth comes out.

When I was rushed to the ER with food poisoning, I heard the doctor shout, "We need to pump her stomach, now!"
But my mother, Catherine, calmly stopped the doctor's hand.
"No hurry," she said coldly. "Give her a sedative first."
My brother Austin panicked. "Mom! If you don't detox her, she could die!"
But my mother's voice was ruthless, low and sharp:
"If she dies, she dies. As long as her uterus is still warm, that's all that matters."
"Did you forget our plan? Sarah's transplant surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. If Elena wakes up now, what if she runs away?"
"Our priority is keeping her uterus safe for Sarah—not saving her life."
In that moment, the burn in my stomach was nothing compared to the chill in my heart.
I forced my eyes open and saw my brother—the one who'd always protected me—hesitate for a moment, then slowly let go of my hand.
"...Okay. You're right, Mom. Saving Sarah comes first."
The moment I closed my eyes, I made a decision: If I survived, this life would never belong to this family again.

My parents and twin sister faked their own deaths so she could steal my college acceptance.

I believed it. Sobbed until I couldn't breathe when the cops showed me photos of the burnt yacht. Thought my words—"I hope you all die"—had somehow made it happen.

Two weeks later, I found my sister's backup Instagram: "Finally ditched the boring sister! Bahamas is paradise 🏖"

Something inside me snapped.

Wanna play dead? Stay dead.

I took their death certificates. Canceled their social security numbers. Drained every joint account—every last cent. Sold the house to John, the kind of guy even cops don't mess with.

One month later, they came home tanned and loaded with designer bags, expecting to find me broken on the streets.

What greeted them instead were cold gun barrels pointed at their heads.

“Dad… please… help me…” I pleaded, my shattered ribs piercing my lungs, blood soaking the stretcher.
But Richard, the hospital's top surgeon and my biological father, didn't even glance at me. Instead, he rushed to the next bed.
“Don't be afraid, Chloe. I'm here,” he cooed to his stepdaughter, who merely had a tiny scratch on her arm. “Get the best equipment over here now!” he roared.
As the heart monitor flatlined and my soul left my broken body, I realized the chilling truth: in the choice between life and death, my father gladly let me die.

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!