Best Family Emotions Stories & Novels Collection

My mom died saving me during a kidnapping. At least, that’s what everyone believed. My dad—once the man who spoiled me like his little princess—turned his grief into hatred. He adopted a girl who looked just like Mom and gave her all the love that used to be mine. For five years, I lived in that shadow, broken and unwanted. Until the day I was beaten and left for dead… and my mom came back. Alive...

“They’ll never love you—you’re a mistake since you were born.”
Four-year-old Yanny hears this her whole life. An illegitimate girl whose mom died in an accident, she’s shunned by her rich dad Andrew, three cruel half-brothers, and four distant uncles—until her star-making viral fame cracks their cold hearts. Only orphan Hayes swears to shield her. Now the powerful men beg for her forgiveness, clin...

The Lupercalia Full Moon festival is in full swing.

A fertility event where the males go wild to hunt and mate.
Alpha Jasper, my mate, leads Storm Forest to the sacred cave to start it all, but I'm left behind.
Despite our three years of mating, I haven't shifted into my wolf, nor have I produced the coveted heir. The pack is furious and my in-laws despise me.
The Moon Goddess has not favored me...

It was my fifth engagement party, and my fiancé, Adrian, didn't show up. Again.

Guests from every family showed up, and one by one, they left again.

Adrian was the Don of the Severino family. We'd been engaged for three years.

His father, Vincent, New York's old Godfather, had arranged the match himself. Every family in the city knew I'd be the next Severino Donna.

My mom, Diane, didn't rush i...

For as long as I could remember, my family had insisted Vivian needed more because I could take more.
The pony I loved. The occasions meant to celebrate me. Time with my mother. If my twin wanted any of it, I was the one expected to go without.
Our induction into the Mafia Family was meant to be the exception. We were both daughters of Don Moretti. A crown was supposed to be waiting for each of us...

They cropped me out of the graduation photo, and nobody even noticed.
For eighteen years, I was the quiet, easy daughter. My sister Brooke got my clothes, my room, and the center of every picture. Ethan, the boy next door who once watched me nearly die from a peanut allergy, handed me a peanut butter smoothie and called it my favorite.
When Brooke found my full-ride acceptance letter, she called i...

When we moved to the estate on the hill, all the bedrooms had already been assigned.
My parents had the primary suite.
My brother, Adrian, had the east wing.
The south suite, with its view of the Hudson—the nicest room in the house—was marked Grace's Room.
There was no room with my name on it.
In the hall, a worker was fastening brass plaques to the bedroom doors.
Not one of them read Claire.
Ten ...

My boyfriend's stepsister was assaulted. She didn't survive it.

I knew the truth, but I refused to name the man who did it.

His parents got down on their knees and begged me. I didn't budge.

When the reporters showed up at my door, I chased them off with a kitchen knife.

He didn't leave me. He turned his back on his family and married me.

And then he made me pay. Every day, he brought people ...

In our family, fairness was the one rule nobody broke.

My brother Brody and my sister Raegan are twins.

Growing up, if one of them got an extra cookie, the other would tear the whole house apart.

To keep the peace, Mom and Dad split everything down the middle. Half went to Brody, half went to Raegan.

Which meant nothing in this house was ever mine.

I was the third kid. The one my parents neve...

I've always had a habit of taking people at their word.

In high school, a girl who liked bullying me broke our classroom projector.

When the teacher walked in, she shoved a broken piece into my hand and whispered, "Hold this. Don't say anything."

I raised my hand.

"Mr. Harris, she broke the projector and gave me this piece. She also told me not to say anything."

At twenty, during my first int...

For eighteen years, I was my family's invisible daughter.
My sister got a $100,000 graduation gift; I got a free promotional tote bag.
They promised her a $7,000 monthly allowance for college; I was told to survive on $700.
She got a custom gown; I was told to wear a plain shirt and hide in a corner.
Even Silas, my boyfriend of three years, chose to stand proudly by her side.

They thought I w...

My wife found a tissue in my car, blotted with another woman's lipstick.

She looked at it for one second. Then she tucked it right back where she found it.

I wasn't worried. Audrey has loved me for fourteen years. She answers my texts in under a minute. She'd never leave me over some mistress.

So I took my mistress to Key West and stretched a long weekend into eight days, just to remind my wife...

Two years ago, I woke up in the pack infirmary with zero memories. Alpha Kendrick and Luna Elspeth—the people I thought were my parents—announced to the pack that I was a rogue imposter who had stolen their true daughter’s identity.
My punishment? A $1,000,000 debt for my upbringing. And a permanent lesson.
Elspeth pried my jaw open and forced liquid wolfsbane down my throat. The poison rooted in ...

Ninety-nine times.

That was how many times Bianca used me to test her mob-boss fiancé.

Ever since I was brought back to the family, the fake heiress tried to prove that Roman Falcone would always choose her over me, the real daughter.

She locked Roman and me in the same room. She passed his expensive gifts right to me. She even made me wear the exact same dress as her to see who he would look a...

My husband abandoned his asthmatic daughter in a freezing shed because she allegedly "scared" his mistress's dog.
"It's just an hour," he said.
But by the time he opened that door, he had lost his daughter, his wife, and his mind.
Read to find out how a broken mother takes her ultimate revenge.

My mom tricked me into a blind date on my thirtieth birthday.

I got stuck in traffic and showed up thirty minutes late, fully expecting a lecture about manners.

Instead, I heard a man's voice through the door.

"So she's thirty. And?"

"You say she's too picky. Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

"You don't like how much she works. Are you signing her paychecks?"

I pushed the door open.

He w...

On my wedding day, my identical twin sister refused to take off my couture gown.
 
"Liora, the bridal party is here," I pleaded.
 
But my father just smoothed her tulle train. "Let her wear it. You're twins, nobody will notice the difference."
 
My mother agreed, tossing a dusty-rose bridesmaid gown at my chest. "It's just a ceremony, Elowen. Just play along."
 
It was always like this. From the l...

"You owe us for raising you. Strip off your silks, put on those rags, and work off your debt like the lowly servant you are."
To satisfy my twin sister's twisted jealousy, my parents faked a bloodline test and stripped me of my Silverthorn name. They threw me out of the estate, broke my spine, and handed me over to a feral, exiled brute. They watched me bleed, laughing it off as a "temporary lesso...

The second the graduation ceremony ended, my parents took us all to the nicest restaurant in town.

They said they wanted to properly celebrate having "two graduates" in the family.

Pierce, my boyfriend of four years, showed up last with a huge bouquet of champagne roses in his arms.

I'd just gotten up from my chair when he walked right past me and handed the whole bouquet to my friend Brooke. "...

One drunken night. One baby. One Don who married me out of duty.

I was the family doctor, a nobody, when I got pregnant with Don Rafael Salvatore’s child. I thought if I stayed quiet, stayed good, and made myself useful, he would eventually love me and our daughter.

Seven years later, I’m still waiting.

Rafael never let Nina call him “Daddy.” When she was two, she said it by accident in public,...

"Thanksgiving's at Garrett's new place this year!"

My sister Paisley dropped a location pin in the family group chat, followed by a string of party emojis. My fiancé, Garrett, ran a real estate company, and the pin pointed to a model home they'd just finished building.

That evening, I grabbed a pumpkin pie fresh out of the oven and caught a rideshare to the address. When we got there, the driver...

I'd been out of Coldwater for two weeks when my family asked me to go back behind silver.

"It's three nights," Mom said. "You did three years. Three nights won't kill you."

They had no idea it would. I'm dying. The only thing still holding my body together is my mate bond, and three nights away from Silas is all it will take.

For three years in Coldwater, a parcel came for me every month. A bla...

I barely spoke a word before I turned six. Behind our backs, he townsfolk whispered that some foul thing had sealed my tongue.
The first time I truly spoke, I was pointing at our neighbor, Emily.
She was flying a kite just outside our fence. Floating right above her head was a stark, blood-red number.
"Three."
My mom poked her head out of the kitchen, asking if I had just spoken.
I nodded and poin...

Ninety-nine. That's how many times my family chose my sister over my life. The final time was three hours ago, on the exact day I was supposed to step out of the shadows and be inducted as the syndicate's first female Consigliere.

I was locked in our underground vault, choking on my own blood, while they hosted a lavish graduation party for Camilla upstairs. Out of everyone, only Julian—my fian...

In my family, there was always room for Eden. There was never room for me.

At dinner, every dish was my sister's favorite: truffle risotto, seared scallops, chocolate soufflé. When she won a prize, my parents toasted her until the glasses rang. When I mentioned my own business, my mother laughed and called it a hobby.

I stopped waiting to be chosen. I learned to stand in the corner and let Eden ...

Beneath the sprawling oaks of Bramblewood University, my parents hovered like proud paparazzi. In the center of their screens stood Liora, my childhood best friend, and Kael—my boyfriend of four years.

They stood pressed together, Liora's blonde curls brushing Kael's jawline. My parents shouted directions with absolute adoration. You'd think she was their flesh and blood, or the one wearing hi...

My twin sister Mallory and I were the kind of girls who could gain two pounds just from smelling fries. On top of that, we both loved to eat, and we both had the same dream: walking the runway at Fashion Week.

Right before our eighteenth birthday, Grandma got so tired of us begging that she went into the woods outside town to find a witch. She came back with two glass jars.

One held a hunger wor...

Gloria had never thought kissing a complete stranger would be the easiest way to escape a scandal.

But there she was—running from a crowd of gossiping eyes, desperate to get away before the whispers swallowed her whole.

Then she saw him.

A stranger.

Tall, composed, and completely unaware that Gloria was about to drag him into the biggest lie of his life.

She didn't know his name.

She didn't ...

Six months ago, a deadly dose of ricin was secretly dropped into my drink. The toxic substance has been relentlessly destroying my body ever since, and my time is nearly up.

Today, my physical strength has completely faded, leaving me with only seventy-two hours to draw breath.

On the brink of my impending death, I gave in and consented to give my remaining kidney to my sister. Overflowing with ...

The night before the gala where my rich family would finally claim me as their real daughter, I sent an email to my future self.
Have Mom and Dad really accepted me?
Does Spencer still hate me?
Julian and I are married by now, right?
A second later, my inbox exploded.
Dozens of photos, one after another, loading faster than I could scroll. Every single one was Julian—my Julian—wrapped around Camil...

For eighteen years, my mother counted every pill I swallowed.
She kissed my forehead every night. She told me I was born broken. She said no one would ever love me the way she did, and I believed her.
Then, on my eighteenth birthday, a voice inside my head screamed: Don’t swallow that.
Her name is Vera. She’s my wolf. And she says there’s nothing wrong with my legs.
Now the woman who sang me to sl...

When I was eight, my older sister pointed a finger in my face and told me I'd been adopted out of foster care.

I went crying to our parents. With their arms around her, they nodded.

“Yes. Your real parents didn't want you.”

After that, I stopped competing with her for affection. I didn't dare ask for new clothes. I took over the housework and fought for the highest grades in my class, terrified...

My mother-in-law got pregnant at fifty-nine.

She had diabetes and high blood pressure, so I talked her out of keeping it. I thought I was saving her life.

I never imagined that months later my husband would die in a car crash, or that his parents would never get pregnant again, no matter what they tried.

They said I'd wiped out their family. So they put weed killer in my water.

My organs shut ...

Love wasn't free in our family. It was literal currency.
My sister, Stella Belle, and I both had a Kinship Savings Jar. 
It held the love and care we received from our families, which could be traded for anything in the Life Exchange Shop.

When I was six, I bought my mom’s life back from cancer by selling away the pain of her carrying me for nine months.
When I was thirteen, I bought my brother a...

I waited two years for a donor heart. When one finally came, my husband gave it to Odette Ashworth, the girl who had been living my life.
My cardiologist gave me one week. So I made arrangements to have my body cryopreserved.
And I donated it to the very lab where Odette worked.
The day I signed the papers, my son threw his arms around me and said he was so glad Mommy and Aunt Odette were friends ...

When I was ten, my parents faked a messy divorce and turned my life into a sick reality show.
They split up me and my twin sister, Romy. She got the Alpine mansion and my mother's luxurious lifestyle.
I was dumped in a moldy basement, scrubbing diner plates and clinging to my physics books to survive my father's "gambling addiction." 
For eight years, I starved to pay off his staged debts. Then, ...

My father is the youngest chief of cardiac surgery in the country, the ace of his field.
His hands were the best in the business. Yet on the day my mother had a sudden heart attack and needed an emergency transfer, he turned her away, claiming every operating room was full.
Later, someone photographed him on a sunlit lawn at a country club on the edge of town, showering another woman's daughter wi...

A billionaire offered me $1.5 million a year to marry him and raise his three kids.

He flew overseas the afternoon we signed.

His youngest told the butler to throw me out. His daughter flipped me off. His oldest smiled and asked what he should call me.

I held up the marriage certificate. "Call me Mom."

Two weeks later, his daughter crouched on her bedroom windowsill and swore she'd jump unless...

On the day of the academy application deadline, my entire family was busy choosing a school for my twin sister, Ivy. Even Adrian, the man who'd promised to make me his Luna, only cared about her.

In my last life, I followed them to Moonvale Academy. Four years later, Adrian proposed to Ivy in front of everyone. My family applauded. That night, I died alone.

This time, I secretly chose Frostland ...

Some houses don’t have exits. Just doors that look like them.

Roxy never wanted her mother’s new life.

She certainly never expected to find herself living under the same roof as Dorian Sinclair—the powerful billionaire who now calls himself her stepfather.

Calm. Controlled. Unreadable.

Dorian sees everything, including the secret Roxy wishes she could erase.

After he catches her witnessing so...

Ten years into my marriage, I'd traded my paintbrush for a spatula and turned into Mrs. Holloway.

Ever since my sister Brooke moved in, my husband Bennett and my daughter Lucy had picked up a habit. Anytime Brooke and I disagreed, they put it to a vote.

On my birthday I wanted steak. Two hands went up for the salad bar Brooke liked. When I hadn't slept in weeks and wanted to see a therapist, the...

The day we moved into the new estate on the hill, every bedroom had a name next to it. The master suite for my parents. The east wing for my brother, Luca. And the best room in the house, the south suite overlooking the Hudson, was labeled Sofia's Room. My name wasn't anywhere. Out in the hallway, a workman was screwing brass nameplates onto every bedroom door. None of them said Chiara. Ten years ...

My father was thrown in the county jail, and my mother collapsed with illness. I went to beg my husband, Elliot Watt, to step in and save him. Instead, he made me choose.
"We've been married four years and you've never gotten pregnant. Now Paige is carrying my child, and the Watt line can't die out. I have to think of her and the baby."
"Either you stay on as Mrs. Watt in name only, move into the ...

All my life, whenever I wished for something, my younger stepsister got twice as much. One doll for me meant two for Chloe. One bedroom meant she got a bigger room plus a study. Even my own mother seemed to love her twice as much.   Then a strange interface appeared on my phone and confirmed the rule.   So I stopped wishing for good things.   I wished for a twenty-six-year-old boyfriend. Chloe got...

The night I was kidnapped, my family was gathered around the long table, raising their glasses to Valentina's birthday.
The kidnappers demand a ransom. I knew it was useless, but with him forcing me, I made the call anyway.
The first call, no one picked up. The second, it was declined.
The third, it finally went through.
"Elena, you've been struck off the Castellano family. Hear me clearly: even i...

On the birthday I shared with my twin sister, my family threw her a party—and called my absence a tantrum.
None of them knew I was lying in the cellar beneath their feet.
With broken fingers, I'd sent my husband the one word he swore would bring him running from anywhere: Lighthouse. He called it a guilt trip and told me to be at the party by seven.
So they toasted my sister. They tossed my place ...

For years, I'd covered everything for my mate's family. The house, the car, the bags, the clothes.

So when they planned a family vacation, I thought I'd finally earned a spot.

Instead, they booked tickets for the whole family, plus Sloane, the childhood sweetheart who never quite left my mate's side. Even the dog had plans.

I was the one they expected to stay home and keep working. They called ...

My mother studied wolf decay for a living.

For three years, I'd been dying of it—and she thought I was faking.

When I begged her to sign the form for my body donation, she laughed. "You'd better actually be dying this time."

I was.

Days later, my heart sat in a glass case at the front of her lecture hall, and she taught a room full of students how to spot my disease.

She had no idea it was mi...

Tori Hayes was unstoppable on the hockey ice. And it was her breathtaking goal that sent St. Bernard into the championship final.
Minutes after her winning goal, her teammate is found murdered in the equipment room.
When the killer threatens someone she loves if she plays the championship final, Tori chooses fear over hockey.
And it was her absence that cost her team the cup.
Her coach turns ag...

The last time Adrian and I fought about Sophie Bennett, we didn't realize our daughter was standing right outside the door.
 
"Don't forget how Ellie got here in the first place. If you hadn't trapped me with a pregnancy, there wouldn't have been a wedding. So yes, goddamn it—I wish Sophie's boy was mine."
 
After that night, Ellie stopped asking for Adrian. She invited George to her preschool fie...