Nicholas Lao Batista, editorial assistant at Will & Williamson Publishing, was not a naturally quiet person. Very few knew this, and he was not one of them. What he failed to say out loud, he wrote instead. It was something a starving artist would say, the kind he would talk shit on if he were loud and a hypocrite. Unfortunately for him, Nicholas was the starving artist, and his art was all he had: his only chance to be at the center of something. He never expected he would one day wind up literally at the center of it, plunging through the pages of an ancient journal into the story he wrote. Except nothing was as intended, and with every passing day, it became harder and harder to tell bad from good. What Nicholas needed was a way home, but he found himself wanting something more - something to do with unwavering eyes and surprisingly gentle hands.

Richard and Carlton are childhood friends who haven't seen each other in five years after that embarrassing incident. Things are about to get awkward now that Carlton is the butler of the Preston family and Richard is the sole heir of the Preston-Astor Group, one the largest conglomerate in the world. --Completed 02/27/25 Ranking Milestones #1 boyxboy #1 bxb #1 lgtbt #1 gay

**WATTYS 2025 HONOURABLE MENTION** Cas and Vish are best friends whose feelings run deep. Whilst Cas is clever, sporty, and on the brink of a bright future at university, Vish has no such prospects. A painfully shy artist, Vish's horizons end at his daily routine of pills, sensory issues and panicking parents. When they celebrate what could be their final summer together by painting wildlife and swimming at a secret wooded wetland hidden in the Fens, Cas and Vish awaken something ancient and sinister lurking in the water. A voice in Vish's head, Charlie, tempts him to spend longer and longer at the woods. As villagers disappear and the woods become the site of strange happenings, Cas is convinced that Charlie is responsible, and that they will claim Vish's body and soul. Determined to free his best friend, Cas isn't afraid of a fight to the death. --- This book started life as an ONC 2025 prompt: 105. Your childhood imaginary friend who disappeared years ago returns - only this time they're real.

Robin Rose doesn't know a lot of stuff, despite being two months out from his high school graduation. However, there is one thing he is absolutely sure of: nobody can know that he is an omega. Not his bully, not his classmates, not his friends, not anybody he may meet in the future, and especially-above all-not his alpha best friend, Jude Silas. Robin just can't risk it. He lives in a world where being a male omega is so frowned upon that it has torn families apart. It's ruined relationships-friendships, most importantly. Robin absolutely refuses to tell anybody, no matter how many lies he has to keep straight in the process. His plans of taking this secret to his grave are going swimmingly, with a few minor hiccups. Robin is completely prepared to take suppressants and scent blockers the rest of his life, and just pretend like he never presented. He will be careful about this. Nobody will know. He's so close to finishing high school-to entering a new chapter of his life. It's all going to work out... As long as he remembers to take his medicine. [] [] [] Rankings: #1 LGBT #1 bxb #1 omegaverse #3 teen fiction !!WARNINGS: smut and swearing, and there's also an incident with drugging though it's nothing graphic. I'm pretty sure that's it tbh. Also the mc is really stupid if that matters. [[TEMPORARY BREAK UP/5 YEAR EPILOGUE TIME SKIP]] I'd also like to specify that I did not put much effort into this story since the entire reason I wrote it was to get over writer's block for another book, so if you're thinking about leaving criticism you should probably know I'm already well aware of all of its flaws. Thank you:)

Zwei, a boy shoved into an arranged marriage at the age of 15, finds himself bound to a life he never wanted. His husband, Sullivan, just turned 17 and is a master of manipulation-a man whose presence feels as toxic as the air in a crumbling dollhouse. Sullivan's cruelty, both physical and emotional, leaves Zwei trapped in a marriage that feels like a living nightmare. With divorce forbidden, Zwei is forced to endure each passing day, his hope dwindling as he struggles to find meaning in the life he's been forced into. Desperation consumes him as he turns to the heavens, silently pleading for a way out. But will salvation ever come? Or is Zwei destined to suffer under the weight of his husband's tyranny, lost in a battle against his own will to survive? Started: Nov 24, 2022 Ended: Apr 10, 2023 Warnings: -MENTIONS of rape -Mental/physical/emotional Abuse (obviously) -Manipulation tactics -Quite a long age gap (2 years kinda, sully RECENTLY turned 17 during the prologue) -Violence -Inappropriate Language -BL/gay/LGBTQ+ -Toxic relationship -Literally the weirdest names for some of these characters (😹👎) -Art not mine !!!ALL CHARACTERS+PLOT ARE MINE, PLEASE ASK BEFORE USE OF THEM!!! Top ranks: #1 in 'victorian' -June 7, 2023 #4 in 'terrible' -April 09, 2023 #9 in 'victorian' -Feb 04, 2023 NOTE1: I know this makes me seem like a terrible person for making a story like this but it's purely for awareness that some people actually go through these types of relationships. If you are in this kind of situation, please do seek help from authorities and escape if possible. I am NOT promoting abuse or any kind of mental torture nor do i support arranged marriages IRL, seriously, ts is bad :,). (Also, you may get emotionally attached to Zwei cuz this boy is my child likee..😞)

In the day-to-day trenches of high school, it is almost the default-setting to believe we are the main character of our own coming-of-age story. This is not wrong. It's just ours isn't the only story there is. The jocks, the nerds, the cheerleaders, the losers, the stoners, the fangirls, the skaters. Everyone's the realest most important person in existence, all of them, at the same time, first-person narrators to their own stories, stumbling into each other's plot lines, defying the status-quo, catalysts to ups and downs. A deconstruction of all the high school tropes and cliches written over the years, a deep-dive into the psyche of students trying to finish high school while going through irrevocable self-discovery, the most improbable of connections, and the insufferable pains of growing up.

2020 WATTYS WINNER in NEW ADULT! Oliver Ausman has been given a second chance at life, but it's hard to feel grateful when he was the one trying to end it in the first place. Returning to his normal life after being released from the hospital is hard, especially since his parent's idea of normal is made up of dinner parties, prep school, fancy suits, and fake manners-- all paired with a complete disregard for the mental health of their firstborn. He's long been fed up with it, but the final straw is when he finds out that his "father" isn't actually his father at all. Oliver decides he's had enough of the perfect facade, so he packs a suitcase and grabs his younger brother, "borrowing" his mother's car to sneak off on a trip to find his biological father. But he never expected to pick up a girl with her own similar set of problems, to be followed across the country by a money-hungry pair of criminals, or most of all, to find out that maybe this life thing isn't as bad as he thought. 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐃 (𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝) - 𝟏/𝟐𝟐/𝟐𝟎

When a knight-in-training sets out on a dragonquest to win the hand of a fair princess, he expects to return in time for a pavilion wedding in the fall. But after fifty years of tracking his quarry across godforsaken hinterlands, he is starting to wonder if he has the stamina to finish the job.

A bleak, steampunky western in which a pregnant woman hunts down her runaway husband, with a mysterious black dog hot on her heels.

Diana is looking forward to finally finishing high school. Stay out of trouble. Focus only on art. This is Diana's grand plan - until she is assigned to paint the portraits of a girl she can't stand to be around: the school's obnoxious soccer team captain, Alex Perez. ***** It's senior year. Diana just wants to keep her head low while dealing with a family that is slowly but steadily falling apart and a best-friend-turned-enemy that she could certainly do without. The last thing Diana wants to do is spend her last year of high school painting the portraits of Alex Perez. Everyone loves Alex - she's the town's prodigy and the school's golden girl. But Diana and Alex couldn't be more opposite; put them in an art room together and a disaster is bound to happen. [[word count: 70,000 - 80,000]] Cover designed by Ilafi Nastiti [WATTYS 2021 SHORTLIST]