LONDON, 1848. Apprentice to the elusive portrait artist Henry Glass, Saskia van Asch spends her days in the studio sketching studies of vain aristocrats. Dreadfully boring, she might complain, but the monotony suits her just fine. And then the mysterious Lady Helen Blackwood commissions a portrait. Saskia takes an immediate dislike to the new sitter, with her evasiveness and quirky mannerisms, not to mention the odd hours she forces Saskia to keep. But the more time she spends with Lady Blackwood, mapping out all the details of her portrait and her life, the more her misgivings transform into a fascination that she finds hard to resist. But giving in to its pull might mean that she has everything to lose. Because Saskia is hiding a secret of her own. -- Main prompt: 117. You're a portrait artist for high-profile clients, but one night a pale, uneasy stranger arrives, asking for a painting. They haven't seen their own face in a century. Secondary prompt: 78. You begin to realise that nothing is quite what it seems.

Rich and spoiled Samantha Astor has dreamed of becoming a music artist since she was a little girl, and finally it is time for that dream to become real. Only problem is that the music critic she sent her music to doesn't like her singing. Luckily, she got a hold of the review before it was published. Unluckily, she can't get a hold of the critic to convince him to change it. With no other option available to her, she decides to kidnap the critic. But instead of the critic, she accidentally kidnaps a mafia boss. ----- Mature rating due to crude language. Other warnings include toxic/abuse relationship (not between FL and ML, though their relationship might not become the healthiest), and there will be a dose of Stockholm syndrome There won't be any sexually explicit scene, though sex might be a conversation topic in the story

Tayla's life should have been full of adventure and battle, and it would have been had she not failed her Crest Champion test a year prior. Now she's stuck at her aunt's herbalist shop, selling potions to the very ranks she once dreamed to join. And her town has just become a hot spot for Crest Champions everywhere. The once-bound dragon Zyrel has awakened after a century of slumber, and he draws dangerous monsters to his cage. The Crest Champions must kill him before he can finally be freed. Tayla plans to keep her head down and avoid the constant reminder of her failed dream, but that changes when an alicorn appears in her garden, claiming they must join forces and release Zyrel before it's too late. There's something wrong with the story of Zyrel's imprisonment, and to uncover the truth, Tayla must join a familiar-and loathsome-face from her Academy days. Dangers await, but the greatest threat she finds in the woods won't be the prowling beasts. It will be herself. -- Shout out to @raizelrose3 for the absolutely amazing cover!!

Main Prompt: And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. When a streak of light sends paramedic Leilana Yang into the heart of Northview, Maine forest, she never thought she would find herself in the middle of harboring a fugitive alien outlaw. Between her job fighting death and her family's future matches, Leilana wants nothing to do with her new "roommate". Add attacks on her life by alien bounty hunters and her brain is more then ready to kick him out. It's too bad her heart is too busy making other plans. As for number 287, he never thought he would find himself stuck on earth with a human as a "roommate". If they were back in the arena, she would be dead in a heartbeat, feasted on by the beasts controlled by the most powerful. Yet, that doesn't seem to do much for this woman who constantly seems to dive head-first into trouble without fear; a trait that drives him insane in more ways then one. With bounties on their heads, can the two of them survive long enough to see an end to this mess or will their own conflicting feelings be enough for them to claim each other's heads?

Mari thought that coming home to a ghost town 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 © 2026 caterina george // all rights reserved

River Kinsella is a fine art student struggling to keep her head above the water. On a rather eventful journey home, she crosses paths with Beatrice Ashcroft, a witch of teh Umbral Coven who is destined to change her life forever. River isn't quite ready to accept that, but little does she know that events have already been set in motion. A powerful archdemon vies for a power she doesn't know she possesses yet, and will stop at nothing to attain it. It's Beatrice's job to make sure River accepts her new reality and rises to fulfill her potential, following in her mother's footsteps before things can turn awry. Beatrice's task is this: bring River into the Umbral Coven and, together, avert the archdemon Kain's plans to bring about the end of the world as we know it. Prompt: 11) The daughter of the most powerful witch is not like her mother. Content warnings: Language (swearing), explicit violence and gore, sexual themes, kidnapping.