Every empire begins with a mother's sin. Every Lilith leaves a mark no man can forget, and every life that crosses her path is altered, or quietly undone. Hülya was not born cruel. She was born clever in a world that devours the innocent and mistakes gentleness for weakness. In the court of Mehmed III, mercy is a luxury few survive, and love is a liability that can cost a throne. So she chooses fire over fear, ambition over surrender, and sin before sin has the chance to choose her. Merciless is the story of a mother who refused to fall in a world designed to bury her, and of the empire that would never be the same because of it.

Wesley Moran is terrible at being evil. Unfortunately for him, he's expected to take over his father's supervillain empire. When the mean girl at his high school discovers his secret alter ego as the Phantom, a bargain is struck up - evil lessons, in exchange for pretending to date as revenge on Iris's ex boyfriend, who just so happens to be the Phantom's rival. But as tensions brew between an anti-superpower political party that involves Iris's father, a rising rogue villain, and Iris's own developing abilities, their high school drama soon becomes the tip of the iceberg in a world of not overcoming evil, but outdoing it. [BOOK 1 IN THE VILLAINOUS VIRTUES SERIES]

There are strange creatures in the water - and TEMPEST RAERIR is tasked with keeping them there. The gods have long since abandoned the Queendom of Khaedel, letting monsters of the deep plague the land with sickness and death. She defends the shores and kills anything that dares to step onto the sand. When one of the queens of Khaedel - Tempest's mentor - falls ill, her duty switches to saving who she cares about most. And she just might be the key to saving everyone. The deeper you go into the Arnstar Ocean, the more powerful the creatures become, and THE WARDEN'S duty is to keep them all in line. For centuries, the magic keeping the most depraved monsters at bay has been waning. Now that cracks have cut through the surface, the Warden faces no choice but to obtain the help of the beings that despise them the most. Tempest and the Warden must band together and venture as far down into the Arnstar Ocean as they can to seal the fissures. Only, getting there might not be as easy as they thought. Can they survive the battles with the leviathans that lurk in the darkness? Or will they prove the gods right that the land is hopeless? ONGOING 2026 © -DeeIsDead-

"People die every day. Yet the folk only seem to care when people die at the hands of a villain or of a superior and darker power." ~ ~ ~ Heather Hawthorne enjoys her peaceful life as a medical herbalist in the city of Sedmion - Until one of her patient dies under inexplicable circumstances. Crops slowly begin to wilt, people grow ill and some descend into madness. Curious - and maybe a little reckless - Heather sneaks away to investigate the scene of the death, letting her indiscreet curiosity get the best of her. There, she crosses paths with Cassius Servodax, the second Prince of Delaryr, who's investigating the same case. Unfortunately for her, he's cold, arrogant and determined to make her life miserable. A sliver of Fate - and a series of poor decisions - land her with the Black Crest Company, a team tasked with finding the link between the illness and The Hollows - an ancient legend buried deep out of fear. However, always keep an eye on your surroundings. You never know what lurks within the shadows. ~ ~ ~ Total Scrivener Wordcount: 74,631 ~ ~ ~ Wonderful book cover by @-DeeIsDead- !! Please check them out, they're amazing! ~ ~ ~ 2ND place in BEST BLURBS - Bewitching Awards by @NerdyPhoenix07

When the two rival football stars collide again, the tension between them shifts from hatred to something far more dangerous. Loving the enemy could destroy their seasons, their futures, and the identities they've fought to protect. *** Gabriel Chase rebuilt his body from the ground up. After a season-ending injury nearly stole his future, he's back on the field with something to prove. He refuses to be underestimated. He refuses to be someone's secret. Mateo Del Campo built his reputation on control. On the field, he hits hard and never apologizes. Off the field, he keeps his real thoughts locked behind discipline and loyalty. He does not make mistakes. He does not lose focus. When their rivalry reignites during Gabriel's comeback season, the tension between them shifts from resentment to something neither of them knows how to name. The chemistry is undeniable. The consequences are brutal. In a sport where loyalty is everything and weakness is punished, falling for the enemy is more than a risk. It's a gamble with careers, reputations, and hearts on the line. *** Open Novella Contest entry for 2026 Prompts: 30, 58

When Elora comes back home one afternoon, she discovers her mentor dead-just another in line of her recent nightmares that came true. With his final message telling her to find a reclusive researcher, as well as the traces of corrupted obsidian powers at the scene of the crime, she quickly realizes that there is something much larger behind her mentor's death. Something has been corrupting Obsidians, and Elora is one of the few people who are seeing that. And now that something has killed her mentor and forced her on a journey she never desired to go on. With the help of an enthusiastic alchemical apprentice-to-be, Elora will have to find Arcani and put an end to the corruption that is trying to catch up to her before it's too late.

A wedding crasher with a broken past. A mafia boss who doesn't believe in accidents. Some love stories begin at the altar. This one begins with an interruption. °°° Male x male romance This book might contain mature content -most likely words that feels illegal to use :). Please be aware of that.

When a cautious Formula One engineer crosses paths with a damaged comeback driver, she discovers that the most dangerous variable she should assess in the sport isn't speed-but attachment. ✦✦✦ Adriana Santos has always known her place on a championship-winning Formula One team is contingent. Excellence, she learned early, is not the same as security. She works in a role the paddock barely understands-simulating failures before they happen, answering 'what ifs' before they become 'what went wrong', and treating the car like a living thing whose future rests in her hands. Her work is quiet, precise, and easily erased the moment she becomes inconvenient. She is careful because she has to be. She knows Joshua Thomas long before she meets him: the driver who changed his name to fit in, the anomaly on a rival team forever tipped for titles. To Adriana, he's a reaction curve that never quite returned to baseline after last season's crash. His comeback is framed as resilience. Many are simply waiting to see him fail. They meet by accident, in a moment stripped of his usual extravagance and pretence. Adriana notices what she always notices-the face behind the mask, the way he laughs through failure like it doesn't frighten him. Adriana doesn't forget him, though. She keeps her distance but Joshua doesn't, and their reluctant friendship begins to bend into something riskier. And they both know exactly what it could cost them. ✦✦✦ ✦ Open Novella Contest 2026 | Prompts 24, 29, 30, 44 ᴄᴏᴘʏʀɪɢʜᴛ © 2026 ʙʏ ᴀᴜᴅʀᴇʏ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛꜱ ʀᴇꜱᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ.

Mari thought that coming home to a ghost town after her mom's death was bad. It turns out it's worse having to attend her estranged father's wedding and letting her childhood best friend break down the walls she carefully built. ***** Mari Chasey's life is suspended. She returns to her hometown in a cold November day following her mother's death, after years of studying abroad in Europe. Pinewood is sleepy in the bitter cold, the deserted shoreline stretching further than she can reach, but that's okay. Mari is good with temporary things and at not lingering. She's not planning to stay for long, just enough to sort out her mother's affairs without poking at open wounds. Then her father returns. Jack Chasey, former renowned superstar, absent for most of her childhood, is getting married to a woman Mari hardly knows. He gets to begin again, build something new, while Mari grapples with a fractured life and all the scattered pieces of herself. Her mother was supposed to live forever; Jack was mercurial and always at arm's length. But now he's here to stay. Enter Kinney St. James. Once Mari's closest friend, then another person that passed by like a comet, she still knows Mari and all the shards of her. Even the sharper ones. In the stillness of winter, Mari reconnects with the quiet life Jack always wanted for her, the softer parts of her that only Kinney can tap into, and what it truly means to be her mother's daughter. ***** Open Novella Contest -- prompts 24, 29, 46, & 77 [[OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2026 ROUND 1 WINNER]] © 2026 caterina george // all rights reserved