Best Independent Stories & Novels Collection

For three years, I genuinely believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until I hit play on that video.

The moment the screen lit up, my perfect reality shattered into a million jagged pieces.

The woman writhing on the bed was Amanda—the sweet, innocent girl we had both grown up with.

And the hand tracing the curve of her bare skin? It wore the platinum wedding band I had personally sl...

As the eldest daughter of North America’s most feared Mafia family, the Romanos, I married Matteo purely for love. For five years, everyone constantly envied me, thinking I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until I opened that video file.

The screen flickered to life, and my world violently collapsed.

The woman he had completely pinned against the wall, thrusting into her with feral desperation,...

The day my sister and I came back to life, we made one call: swap fiancés.

Last time, Dad burned every favor he had to lock down two marriage deals for the family. One with a mafia family that runs the West Coast. The other with a corporate CEO.

My sister married the mafia leader. She was too gentle, too kind for a world that ran on blood and backstabbing. The man had a childhood friend who play...

Years of failed IVF—
all because of my husband.
And while I was drowning in the truth,
he was fitting jewelry on another woman like she belonged to him.
That was my breaking point.
That was the moment I walked away.

"You have two months to live." The doctor's death sentence was still ringing in my ears when I found the receipt in his pocket.

[Four Seasons Hotel. Romance Suite. Check-in: 3:00 PM.]

3:00 PM. The exact moment I was begging the doctor for painkillers, Alexander was in a hotel bed with another woman.

I looked at him, sleeping soundly beside me. I had loved this man for five years, sold everythin...

When the screen lit up, my heart stopped beating.
The woman twisting on the bed, breathless and flushed, was Rachel. The innocent girl we grew up with. The adopted sister I had fiercely loved and protected for over a decade.

And the hands claiming her body?
They belonged to my childhood sweetheart, Sebastian. On his finger glinted the very wedding band I had lovingly slipped onto his hand.

*"I...

Reese Calloway doesn't do second chances. Three years after a betrayal that ended her photography career and gutted her confidence, she keeps her world small, controlled, and safely closed. She photographs real estate listings and sleeps with her phone off. She trusts no one.
Cole Mercer is the most hated man in professional hockey and for good reason. His reputation is built on aggression, rule-...

I walked into the wrong hotel room...
To a naked man fresh out of the shower.
Now, I’m pregnant with his baby.

I should’ve left as soon as I saw him.
He was too beautiful to be real.
I got halfway to the door…
And then he saw exactly what I was trying to hide.

“Who hurt you?” he said when he glimpsed the bruises. “Let me fix it.”
I should’ve said no.
But honestly? I deserve a little luck from th...

I’m in love with my sworn enemy.
My touch tames his inner beast.
… Until I find another woman’s bite mark on his neck.

As a holy witch, I shouldn't be sneaking out for Zuri—a cursed shape-shifter from a rival clan.
But our forbidden heat is intoxicating.
When his monstrous Primal breaks free, slaughtering everything in its path, even his fiercest warriors cower.
I don't.
I walk straight to the bl...

I watched my husband dote on his pregnant mistress while the doctor told me I had three months left to live.
For ten years, I lived like a ghost in his mansion—paying his bills, enduring his lies, carrying a marriage he never valued. He assumes I’ll never leave because he’s footing the cost of my mother’s cancer treatment.
He’s right. I do need the money.
But I refuse to spend the rest of my life ...

I gave him seventeen chances to marry me, yet he eagerly toasts with his new flame, showers her with gifts, and retreats to hotels with her.
He has forgotten that I do not have pierced ears, presenting me annually with earrings I can never wear; he has overlooked our seven-year anniversary but vividly remembers the one-year anniversary of his new lover's employment.
Seventeen promises of marriag...

What would you do if the man you secretly loved, the husband you married, the one you gave everything to, openly shared intimate moments with his ex in front of the cameras, without a single trace of remorse?
"Sign it and leave it on the dining table when you're done. I've been wanting to do it for a while now, but I didn't want you to feel bad. You know I don't love you, but you keep on bothering...

"What makes you think you deserve to touch me?" I demanded. "Why don't you go to your mistress instead?"
"You're kind of... small. For a man of your stature."
The King froze. For three years, he'd treated me like nothing and tonight, he'd finally decided to claim what was his.
He didn't know I wasn't the girl he'd broken.
I went to sleep a nobody. I woke up a Queen.
One night I was just a broke, ...

I got pregnant from a one-night-stand.
I wasn’t going to tell the father…
Until I walked into the office and found out he’s my new boss.

Here’s some advice: Don’t sleep with your boss.
Here’s some more: Don’t sleep with your married boss.
And while I’m at it: Don’t sleep with your married, dangerous, billionaire, completely-incapable-of-feeling boss, because all he’s going to do is break your hea...

Four years ago, Lena Hartley made the most embarrassing mistake of her life. On a stupid dare from her friends, she tries to seduce Adrian Cole—the sexy teaching assistant every girl at the university had a crush on.

Lena discovered, far too late, that Adrian wasn’t alone. His girlfriend was there. And Lena was standing in front of them… naked.

Now Lena works quietly at a coffee shop, keepin...

What would you do if you walked in on your husband cheating?
I'll tell you what I did:
Ran out the door with nothing but the clothes on my back.

A month later, I'm broke, jobless, almost homeless.
But then, while filling in as a waitress at a fancy restaurant, I trip and land in the lap of a gorgeous stranger.

One thing leads to another and we end up hooking up.
Afterwards, he leaves.
That's the...

In a werewolf pack that despised weakness, Aphrodite learned to survive by staying quiet, keeping her head down, and enduring cruelty in silence. The Alpha heirs hated her. The future Beta and Gamma made her life unbearable. When she finally breaks and seeks freedom at the Moon Goddess temple, she does not find release.

She finds truth.

Aphrodite is not human at all. She is a rare white wolf, de...

One wardrobe malfunction.
Two people who don’t belong together.
Three awful words: “Be my wife.”

Everyone else is at this party to marry the host.
I’m only here until I can get a ride home.
When my dress rips in the world’s worst-timed wardrobe malfunction,
I go find somewhere quiet to fix it.

So I’m standing there in nothing but my heels when,
As my luck would have it, the door opens…

And the ...

I became Luna of the Shadowfang pack, bound to an Alpha who treats me like a stranger.

The only one who sees me is his Beta—and our forbidden connection could destroy us all.

Two months ago, I was an ordinary wolf. Now I'm Elara, Luna of the Shadowfang pack, mated to the most powerful Alpha in the territory. But the title means nothing when my mate, Damon, won't even look at me.

He says he's pr...

I bled to death on a cold hospital bed, my unborn child gone, all because I took a shift for my coworker.
Heaven granted me a second chance. I opened my eyes, sitting safely at my office desk. Before I could shake off the nightmare, Vanessa clicked her heels toward me.
"Claire, can you cover for me at the investor party tonight? It’s my anniversary with my boyfriend."
In my past life, I agreed, on...

I got my diagnosis the same day his ex walked out of our bathroom in his bathrobe.
For three years, I wasn’t a wife. I was a placeholder.
With my time running out, something in me finally broke—clean and final.
I won’t spend what’s left dying for a man who never chose me.
This time, I choose myself.

I made a deal with Declan Moss at prom and I told myself it was strategy.

He needed a girlfriend. I needed an ex-boyfriend to finally notice I had moved on. Clean terms, mutual exit. I was good at arrangements. I had been making myself useful to people who didn't deserve it for years.

What I was not prepared for was him. Not the version he performs... the armor, the silence, the carefully manage...

I've been with Michael for five years, stood by him as he clawed his way up from nobody to mafia boss.

He promised me we'd get to city hall and make it official once he made it to the top, and today's supposed to be the day we finally register our marriage.

He's already postponed our registration eight times before because of his first love, Yvaine Price.

This is attempt number nine, and I'm ...

On the day I received my late-stage gastric cancer diagnosis, the business proposal I’d pulled three all-nighters to finish was being fed straight into a paper shredder by my husband, Lu Ting.

Amid the deafening roar of the machine, his voice was cold and unapologetic: “Put Yingying’s name on this plan. She just got permanent employment and needs this achievement to get a firm foothold.”

I said ...

"Marry me, Nora! I'll leave her!" Kyle begged, reeking of alcohol and desperation. He grabbed my wrist, his Lycan strength bruising my skin. I shoved the pathetic heir away. "I'd rather die than marry into your family."

When Nora, a human social worker, witnessed her Alpha boyfriend's betrayal, her world instantly collapsed. In the aftermath of the betrayal, she threw herself wholeheartedly into ...

I was supposed to hate him. Instead, he stole everything: my freedom, my breath, my heart.

When Yara’s life collides with Rafael’s, it’s not by chance... it’s by force. Powerful, dangerously handsome, and untouchable in his tailored black suit, Rafael is the kind of man whispered about in fear. He’s ruthless. Cold. A man built on secrets and sins. The last person Yara should ever want.

But hatre...

Knox’s hand closes around the collar of my cut, tugging me back just enough that I feel the heat of him at my spine.

“You keep looking at trouble like that,” he murmurs against my ear, voice rough and low, “and one day it’s going to look back.”

I tilt my chin, meeting his gaze over my shoulder.

“Good,” I whisper. “I’m counting on it.”

His mouth curves slowly, dark and dangerous.

“Careful, Sha...

She won't take him back--no matter what. Or will she?

Hayden Jenkins has lived in her hometown of Missoula, Montana, ever since she was born. She lives a simple life surrounded by her loving family, and that seems to be everything she needs.
Or so she thinks.
When her oldest brother’s wedding approaches, she fears facing a ghost from her past, the one who left her heartbroken seven years ago—Spen...

I was born scentless, bondless, and worthless in a world ruled by fate and fated mates.
They labeled me broken. Unmarkable. Disposable.
For years, I bled to keep the wolf king’s heir sane—my blood quieted his curse, his lies fed my hope. I thought I was his everything.
Until his real fated mate appeared.
He cast me aside like trash, threw me to the war-torn streets, and let me die for his crown.
I...

Ethan Calloway and I had been together for eight years. Married for three—or so everyone thought.
We had the ceremony. The hospital chapel, the white dress, his boss giving a toast. But we never made it to City Hall to sign the papers. He promised we would. Eighteen times.
Every time, something came up. Or rather, someone came up—his young protégée, Chloe. She needed him at the hospital. She neede...

I died in the tenth year of our marriage. Not from illness, but from thirty-six hundred days of silent cruelty and penance.

Ten years ago, during that avalanche, he grabbed my hand at the last second. The girl he loved got buried under all that snow.

After that, even breathing felt like a crime.

He drank himself into oblivion, stayed out all night, and on the anniversary of her death, he'd wrap...

Amara Cole has always believed in doing the right thing. A scholarship student at the city’s most elite high school, she’s learned to keep her head down, protect her family, and avoid trouble at all costs. But the one person she’s been warned to stay away from — Adrian Vale, the principal’s golden son — is about to turn her carefully ordered world upside down.
Adrian was supposed to be the enemy: ...

"Look at me properly and try to remember." He implored her, his silvery eyes boring into hers. Maya raised her nervous eyes to meet his. Searching her head, she tried to remember where she may have met this man before.

As she stared at him, a sense of familiarity began to settle. Those eyes... she'd seen them before. Where has she seen them? One by one, the images came. The pictures from a time ...

He knelt in the dirt, begging to see the daughter he abandoned, but I pointed to the man beside me: "She calls him Daddy now."

Ryan looked like a ghost. Stomach cancer had eaten away his arrogance, leaving only skin and bones. He stared at Grace—the baby he thought was dead, the baby he tried to replace with an orphan. "Zoey... I'm her biological father. Please."

I held Chris's hand, feeling his...

Qiara Stone died once—long enough to watch the Clayborne family mourn her like a performance and celebrate their glittering “songbird” like she was born to shine. Then Qiara wakes up a week earlier in her twenty-year-old body, memories intact, heart blazing with one truth: she was never meant to be background noise in someone else’s masterpiece.

Raised by loving adoptive parents until a hospital ...

At the auction, when Anna’s painting was sold for the highest price of the night, I died in a dim underground studio.

No one knew that the painting had stolen my inspiration.

I was the most talented painter in the Hale family, yet I lived forever in my sister’s shadow — only because our paintings always ended up strangely similar.

At first, people said it was the bond between sisters.
Later, af...

Xie Zhouyan was childhood sweethearts with my elder sister, and they had been betrothed to each other since they were little.

I had seen the normally woman-repelling Xie Zhouyan turn red with jealousy just because my sister smiled at someone else—he kissed her fiercely for a full hour.

Later, he was exiled to the northwest by his family, my sister ran away, and their engagement was annulled.

On...

"You're the one who deserves to die, you bitch!"

I couldn't control myself anymore. I slapped Olivia across the face—hard. She had forced her sapphire necklace into my bag, then accused me of stealing it to pay for my dying dog's surgery. "You and that pathetic dog of yours—you both deserve to die," she whispered in my ear, her voice dripping with venom.

Before I could strike her again, a brutal...

On my wedding day, instead of the romantic photo montage, I played a live video feed from the bridal suite.

The guests gasped. The screen didn't show our childhood photos. It showed my fiancé, Benjamin, pressing a woman in a white dress against the vanity.
It was my bridesmaid. My cousin. Mia.

"Benjamin, tell me," Mia giggled, wrapping her legs around his waist. "Do I look better in this white d...

Since I was ten, he told me to call him brother. But brothers don't look at you like that.
My life had only Daniel Wilson in it. He was my guardian, my savior, my world.
"Call me brother," he said, but he forbade me from dating anyone else. He kept me in his manor like a bird in a gilded cage. He promised that when I turned twenty-one, the title of "sister" would change to "wife."
I waited. I obey...

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. ...

He broke down the morgue door, his guttural scream echoing off the cold tiles as he yanked open drawer after drawer.

"Emily!"

Ethan's hands shook violently as he pulled it open. She lay inside, a white sheet draped over her face. With trembling fingers, he peeled back the fabric. Her face was paper-white, lips bloodless, her eyelashes casting faint shadows. So still.

This wasn't the Emily he kn...

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...

The day my husband lifted another woman into his arms, I was lying on the ground, the runway behind me still smoking from the blast.
“That pregnant woman looks so pitiful.”
The girl in his arms spoke, her voice soft and trembling—so innocent, so kind, so beautiful.
Everything I wasn’t.
If the man holding her weren’t my husband, I would have liked her too.
Just like my husband once liked the woman...

Everyone in our circle knows I'm Adrian's caged bird, and the "bad woman" his son Miles hates most.

For Miles, I gave up my fellowship in Zurich and spent seven years playing housewife.

What did I get in return? Adrian took Sophie to gallery openings on our anniversary. Miles smashed cake in my face in front of everyone, calling me a frumpy housewife.

Adrian was certain I couldn't leave him. Ce...

Arielle never imagined one night could change everything.

Now she’s carrying a secret, one that could destroy her best friend, ruin her life… and awaken a dangerous desire in the man she was never supposed to want.
Secrets, lies, forbidden attraction and a ticking countdown to the truth.

One wrong decision, and nothing will ever be the same.

All her life, Luceila had only known control and hatred. 

As if living under the iron hands of her mother was not enough, she ends up with three stepbrothers who already hated her before they knew her name. So all she does is stay hidden until she's needed.

Not until the boys begin to sense something stronger than hatred. Her scent. It drives mad with lust that each of them wants to claim desp...

Thorin had her pinned to the wall, her beautiful eyes covered with an elegant mask. But he knew her. After slowly removing the mask, he gasped, “it’s you!” His breath shuddered. The girl he had been searching for was standing before him.
He could not control himself and placed his mouth on her lips, kissing her with all the love, all the adoration he could muster.


Maeve, a human girl, had a ...

“Get away from me,” Aria said, her voice unsteady.

Aston didn’t move away. No, he leaned in, the blade she held against his neck piercing through just enough to draw a thin line of red.

He smiled.

“Careful, my lady,” he murmured. “Your hands are shaking.”

Her grip tightened on the hilt.

“Now look at him,” Aston continued softly. “Look at your son… and tell me whose eyes he has.”

There was ab...

Under a will

A city lawyer with a plan. A small town handyman with a grudge. And a bookstore that isn’t big enough for both of them.

​Elena Vance lives her life by the numbers. As a high powered attorney, she deals in facts, logic, and iron clad contracts. So, when she inherits her eccentric aunt’s crumbling bookstore in a tiny Maine town, she has a simple exit strategy: fix the accounts, sell t...