Investigative journalist Elaine Makris finally has a story worth her career: a fairground buried by a landslide, unearthed decades later, filled with collapsed rides and animal bones. But when she walks through a burned-out archway on the site, she doesn't find ruins. She finds the carnival alive. Roaring. Beautiful. Felix Bathory, the ringmaster, finds her within minutes. He's charming in the way predators are charming. He touches her lower back like he already owns it. He offers her a deal; one week behind every locked door, every curtain, every secret. All the truth she wants. In exchange, she stays. His rules. She thinks she's using him. He knows she is. He doesn't mind. Because watching Elaine Makris; controlled, untouchable, empty; crack open is the first thing in 147 years that feels like happiness. And the carnival is very interested in that.

Her name was Rachel L. Walker. She was the quiet one in school. Never featured in the school yearbooks that she was practically invisible. She never brought herself attention, she avoided it. It was her normal. However, nothing would quite prepare her for the day where her repeating cycle would be broken. The impossible occurs. A sudden apocalypse outbreak changes everything you've once known. Classrooms aren't for teaching-they're for protection. Classmates become friends but also rivals. Betrayal is common when things got too complicated. And as for life, it was now a massive game of jeopardy. Fear is what controls you and ignites emotions to spiral out of control. But within all the chaos, Rachel must adapt quickly if she wants to survive. She must learn to trust herself when others may not. She must come to her senses and survive beyond the dead, however the undead would be the deadlier ones.

𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 #𝟏 ─────── 𝐕𝚰𝐕𝚰𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓𝚰𝐍𝐄 is described as perfection incarnate: poised, dutiful, and untouchable. For her twenty years among the earth, she has spent it all behind silk curtains and walls of stone, slowly built to enter a marriage that has been arranged since she was younger than five years old. Beneath her pristine exterior, was to be found someone who wanted to be more than a priceless jewel - and more so a desire, a curiosity. 𝐄𝐕𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐁𝐒𝚰𝐃𝚰𝐀𝐍 wasn't meant to love someone else - his life was built to control, to command, and to stand beside her by expectation. However, the moment his piercing stare met with his bride, the rules that he so carefully built for himself crumbled within seconds. Possession was no longer a word that was whispered between business and family - it was intensified, personal, unavoidable. Every single interaction between 𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄 and 𝐄𝐕𝐑𝐄𝐍 was a game, a challenge. Every conversation between them was a dance between resistance and desire. 𝐄𝐕𝐑𝐄𝐍 wants her not only by his side, but intertwined in his mind, his soul, and his world. Every small, careless act around her was a whispered promise. Between the depths of desire and duty, an irresistible love begins to bloom - a love that possesses, devours, and consumes; leaving nothing but their souls in its wake. #1 - emotionalslowburn | 03.07.2026 #2 - emotionaltension | 02.02.2026 #2 - polaropposites | 04.18.2026 #5 - 19thcentury | 03.31.2026 #5 - angstyromance | 05.26.2026 started :: 01.25.2026 ended :: 06.19.2026

They didn't think they'd ever be close to each other again. Jade Carter has spent her entire life building up walls - between herself and the world, between herself and the boy who used to be her best friend. Somewhere between scraped knees, shared summers, and a childhood she barely remembers, Ben Wells became the one person she couldn't stand being around. The past of Jade is unknown... But on her seventeenth birthday, everything changes. A single unexpected moment pushes Ben and Jade back into each other's lives, reopening their wounds they never healed and memories they almost forgot about. What starts as anger and unresolved resentment slowly twists into something fragile. As Jade struggles to make sense of her feelings for the boy she swore she hated, she begins to uncover pieces of her family that were never meant to be found. Secrets about why her childhood feels broken in places she can't remember. Caught between the ghosts of who they used to be and the terrifying reality of who they might become. Jade and Ben have to decide if they will let damage of the past break them or shape them.

Brooke Williams, set appart by her withdrawn, reserved nature, hadn't been the same ever since the sudden death of her sister. The girl was found deceased within the forest next to Kate's house, where was hosted the biggest party ever thrown in the history of this ghastly small town. Although May's passing came to be confirmed as suicide, Brooke sensed right away that something wasn't adding up. She was the closest person to her sister : How come she'd never noticed the signs? On the edge of losing hope, Peter, the handsome barista, put her right back into the spiral ; soon, her doubts would shift into the beginning of a quest for the real answers. And she'd soon uncover that people, especially popular kids, are never who they pretend to be right away. And that, even less when they've got something to hide.

Book 2 of 4(✨The Valemont Series✨) His hips pressed against mine, deepening the kiss with a slow, deliberate rhythm. I could feel the weight of the cold metal tucked into his pocket brushing against the inside of my thighs and the heat pooling between my legs only growing from the anticipation of what I wanted. "Do it." "Do what, Vipera?" His voice was low, husky, warm breath ghosting over the sheer lace covering my nipples making a sharp gasp escape me. "Use your gun." ___________________________ 𝐇𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲. 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐍𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞. Xavier Romano is the heir to a brutal criminal empire, a weapon shaped by blood, obedience, and revenge. Every step he takes is calculated. Every emotion is a liability. When he's ordered to target Irene Kang; the daughter of the man responsible for his mother's death, he accepts without hesitation. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. Irene Kang lives in the shadow of power she never asked for. A minister's daughter wrapped in elegance and restraint, she has learned to survive through control, silence, and sharp intuition. Love has always felt like something meant for other people until a single night changes everything. Their meeting is accidental. Their connection is not. What begins as surveillance turns into obsession. What should have ended in blood becomes something dangerously intimate. As secrets surface and loyalties fracture, Xavier is forced to choose between the empire he was born to inherit and the woman who makes him feel human for the first time in his life. Irene, caught between truth and betrayal, must decide whether love is worth the cost of everything she thought she knew.

Six years ago, Blanchard Collins packed her bags, boarded a bus to Houston, and never looked back. She left behind her abusive father, the town that never forgave her for speaking her mind, and Rueben Bailey, the boy who broke her heart the night before they were supposed to run away together. Now twenty-four, Blanchard returns home with her five-year-old daughter, Willow, and a dying mother who's asked for one final thing-her presence. But coming home means facing the ghosts she thought she'd buried, including the man she's never truly stopped loving. Rueben "Benny" Bailey did what his family expected. Stayed, took over the farm, and proposed to the girl everyone said was right for him. But when Blanchard walks back into church with a little girl who looks just like him, everything he's built starts to fall apart.

STRANGER THINGS ✔︎ we're so much more than the bad things that happen to us. 1/1 steve harrington x oc seasons 2-5