Two strangers meet on a night train. A has given up on her life, whilst R would prefer to run away from hers. It is by mere happenstance that they are seated opposite each other on the train, merely the fear of being impolite that gets them to start a conversation. But perhaps it will be by choice that they kindle a connection. GENRE: literary fiction, woman x woman romance COMP TITLES: Alone With You In The Ether, The Reader on the 6.27 featured in: Social Themes: Ambassador Spotlight

❝ Sometimes the hardest part isn't falling in love again. It's believing you deserve to. ❞ Years after heartbreak, Callie Hart thought she'd finally moved on. But when she returns home for her best friend's wedding, one unexpected encounter changes everything. Lucas Maddox is older now, steadier, and still impossible to read. What was supposed to be a quick reunion turns into something much more complicated when he offers her a job and becomes her boss. Between late nights at the office, confessions, and the kind of chemistry neither of them can ignore, Callie begins to wonder if she's ready to trust again. They've both been burned before, but maybe love isn't about starting over. Maybe it's about finally showing up. First Draft ❤️ 2025 Second Draft ❤️ 2026 © Jess Murrell | 2025/2026 | Wattpad

**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, the lads awaken something ancient and sinister lurking in the water. A voice in Vish's head -- Charlie -- tempts him to spend longer and longer in the woods. When villagers begin to disappear and Vish becomes increasingly secretive and distant, Cas is convinced that Charlie intends to claim Vish, body and soul. Lies, heartbreak and obsession push their friendship to breaking point, but nothing will stop Cas from protecting Vish from Charlie's onslaught, not even 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.

*Speculative Fiction Awards 2021 Honorable Mention* *2nd Place in the LGBT genre in The Aeryn Awards 2021* Complete. LGBT mythological fantasy with romance elements. Dark PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS + BEAUTY AND THE BEAST with a bit of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE. Exclusive to Wattpad. In a world eternally ruled by the Olympians, love has never been closer to death. HEDONE: In a world where Ancient Greece and its gods live forever, Hedone is a goddess, the daughter of Eros and Psyche. After years of isolation on a floating island, she's now Zeus' lover, too. The King of Olympus asks her to prove her loyalty with one task: discover whether Melinoë, the daughter of Hades and Persephone, is conspiring against him after her exile from the Underworld. But as she and the goddess of ghosts grow close, Hedone must choose whether to follow her heart or choose what's safest. ONIA: Queen Harmonia is the daughter of an affair between Ares and Aphrodite, which led to a jealous Hephaestus crafting a serpent necklace for her wedding that has doomed her and literally embeds itself in her skin. As she tries to crawl out of the melancholy or "madness" she's used to, her husband announces that Zeus has granted help for the cursed gift: Circe, the cunning witch. As Onia receives Circe's help and tutelage, she develops feelings that threaten the way things must be, lest the world devolve into war and suffering because of the Olympians' anger. 18+ with content warnings inside.

❝ Sometimes the person you'd burn the world for is busy lighting it up for someone else. ❞ Callie Hart has been in love with her best friend, Jamie Carter, for as long as she can remember. So when she suspects he's falling for someone else, she does the unthinkable: She fakes a relationship with his sworn enemy, Eli Maddox, to make him jealous. But Eli has secrets of his own. What starts as a petty ploy turns into something far more complicated when Callie begins to see the real Eli: sharp-tongued, infuriating, and heartbreakingly human. And while she's busy faking feelings, she starts to wonder if Jamie's been faking something, too. As rivalries fade and truths come to light, Callie's plan spirals out of control, because Jamie doesn't love her. He loves his enemy. And maybe, just maybe, they've all been faking it in different ways. © Jess Murrell | 2025 | Wattpad

||WATTY WINNER 2023🌟|| Two strangers pretend to be a couple to win a dumb bet. The wager: they must enrol in couples therapy and fool their counselor. _________ Six non-refundable couples counseling sessions. That's how many Clementine booked for him and his girlfriend to sort out their relationship problems. What he didn't see coming was getting dumped as soon as he informed her of it. Enter Everett, a chaotic, curly-haired boy who barges into Clementine's life. He offers to fake date and attend the counseling sessions with Clementine. Unfortunately, they are both idiots. Did they really believe they could safely fake-date in a Wattpad book and NOT fall in love? ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 Might bring to mind: "Heartstopper" but with a ton more baking and fake dating 🌈 🎼🎶 This book has a Spotify playlist with a song for each chapter. To download it you can search me on Spotify @itsmeimthevampire - the playlist name is "Idiots To Lovers." 🏅🏅🏅 Watty Winner 2023. Shortlisted in the Open Novella Contest 2023. Featured on Wattpad profiles: @Lgbtq @FreeTheLgbt @Romance 🏆🏆🏆 #2 lgbt #2 lgbtq 📆 10/5/23 #4 gay 21/5/23 #4 bxb 14/5/23 #5 boyxboy 13/5/23 #1 gayromance 5/5/23 #1 gayshipsareyayships 14/5/23 Written for ONC2023 using prompt 39: On a blind date with a complete mismatch, you're increasingly uncomfortable but too polite to leave. Then an attractive stranger comes over and gives you an out.

[Complete. Wattys 2023 Winner] The Redding takes you if it knows your name. That's the rule that's kept Meg alive --- or awake, rather --- since the night the world went to hell. Nobody knows where the red stuff came from, but it acts like water, it's in the water, and it falls as rain every night. The people it captures drop like puppets with their strings cut. They're asleep, not dead, and they can be reawoken. But then they just try to kill you. Meg and the other survivors she's befriended think they've found a stable equilibrium, six weeks after the catastrophe began. In an empty town, there's not much to do except innovate new survival methods. Meg's crush is the one to discover that Morse Code, like writing, is a safe means of communication. That's all fine and good until the nightly rain begins. Raindrops, as it turns out, can make dots and dashes, too. The Redding can talk. And it's telling her to run. ❖❖❖ Complete. Wattys 2023 Winner. Featured on: @Wattpad - Embrace the Fear: Horror Stories @WattpadExplorer - Embrace the Fear: Scary Stories @Creators - Scary Stories to Read in the Dark @Wattpad Explorer - From Our Creators @dystopianapocalypse - Featured D&A Stories @Wattpad Explorer - Why Not Buy Some Flowers @Fright - Featured Stories Comments and critiques are both welcome and appreciated. I write characters from many different backgrounds, with many different experiences. If you share those traits and find that I have misrepresented anything, please let me know! I am feedback-friendly and here to learn :)

Overly cautious and hopelessly single Julie Kendrick is finally getting over her one failed attempt at love. But now she has to join her serendipitously paired off siblings for their annual family Christmas gathering in Quebec City. Alone. Unless her mother has her way and manages to pair her off with a local who, to hear her tell it, could solve Julie's man drought. Desperate to avoid the family matchmaking game, Julie enlists her friend Christian Xie to help her run interference, but he only agrees on the condition that they tell their families they are dating. And with her options looking thinner than a cookie sheet, Julie sees no other choice but to settle into a routine with Christian. But just as she's ready to take the fake part out of dating Christian, her first and only love, Ronan Tremblay, comes waltzing back into her life. Torn between a residual love for both men, Julie tries to keep up appearances with her family while allowing Ronan a chance to redeem himself. But going from dating no one to juggling two men at once might prove to be more than Julie can handle. Especially with her family still trying to set her up with that local gentleman. ~*~ Featured in @romance 's Hot for the Holidays reading list: July, 2022 ~*~ This story is now complete! Feel free to binge read at your leisure.

Wrath will cremate Cecilio Velez to the bone. Beewolf, his personal demon manifested from childhood nightmares, has taught them to think with fire. When he's about to be expelled from his fifth school, his older brother and current guardian has had enough. So, with the help of the class know-it-all, Cece reluctantly tries to clean up their act. But when you've spent a decade sharpening your teeth, it's hard to dull the urge to bite. GENRE: coming of age with elements of psychological horror TROPE: enemies to best friends, grumpy x grumpy COMP TITLES: if Lilo and Stitch were in Skins grand winner of the Nano Watt YA category 2025 featured in TeenFiction: Soul Deep featured in FreeTheLGBT: Coming Of Age featured in TripleACommunity: Young Adult featured in TeenFiction: LGBTQAIP+ Teens

Nicolás Velez is done with casual sex. Listen, yes, he might've slept with everyone in his flat within the first week of living in halls and had a respectable run on Grindr, but what eighteen-year-old wouldn't? He's almost twenty-four now, though, and hooking up with people who can't pronounce his name is, as his best mate would say, "not cute, baby girl". Problem: Nikki sucks at dating. With only disasters to show for his efforts, he decides to take a break from it all. That is, until he meets Josephine Rawlins. GENRE: romance, pan man x bi woman TROPES: workplace romance, friends with benefits, mutual pining COMP TITLES: Entergalactic, Take A Hint Dani Brown featured in Wattpad: Black Love featured in Wattpad: BHM Contemporary Lit featured in Wattpad: Pride Community Recommendations featured in lgbtq: Pride Shelf Dec 24 featured in lgbtq: Bisexual and Pansexual featured in Ambassador Recommendations BIPOC Mental Health featured in Ambassadors: Rainbow Fiction featured in Romance: Slow Burn featured in Romance: LGBTQAIP+ Romance featured in Romance: Pride Month featured in Romance: New Beginnings FreeTheLGBT Pride Awards winner 2025 Nano Watt Romance shortlister 2025