Welcome to Road to The Wattys - an interactive resource for writers and readers designed to prepare and get you excited for this year's awards. Maybe you're new here, or maybe you've submitted to The Wattys in the past. No matter your level of Watty's expertise this community guide is for you! Every week, we'll be releasing a new chapter for you to check out and engage with! Note that the formal rules and regulations won't be released until May 20th, 2025 but we have already released some information about this year's awards which will be re-iterated in chapter one of this guide. Make sure to follow this profile and save this to your reading list to stay updated!

In a world ruled by men, one woman makes a stand. When her father and brother die in the Napoleonic Wars, Corinna Wolverstoke of Penninghall and her mother Liz are thrown at the mercy of the merciless man who takes over the title. Corinna has to steal to stave off genteel starvation, but she does it with style: She dresses up as a highwayman, using her soothsaying skills to find her victims. Highway robbery keeps the little family alive, but for how long? The price on her head weighs heavier than the gun in her hand. The days she holds up the Marquis of Demoral, she knows she's found her match. In more ways than one. This is based on ONC Prompt #2: The moment you realize you saw something that could cost your life. Now all you can do is try and outrun them.

The third and final book to the trilogy.

1st Place Winner of the Historical Gothic Romance Contest Entry - Oct. 2022 Clara Fears is eager for the return of her husband, William, master of the Levi Woodbury. His time at sea comes to an end each October and throughout the month Clara waits on bated breath. Though this time, something doesn't quite feel right. WARNING: SPICE! 🌶️ This story it's rated mature due to sexual themes. Reader discretion is advised.

When Celia Barnes starts a new job at a cottage hospital in the middle of rural Yorkshire, she thinks she may at last have escaped her shadowed past. But not all her troubles are over. Doctor Fane, the chief surgeon at the hospital, takes an instant dislike to Celia. Was it something she said, or has he somehow discovered Celia's dark secrets?

How long is a lifetime? For Luc, it stretches far beyond human reckoning. As punishment for a crime that shook the foundations of the world he once belonged to, he is now condemned to walk the earth among mortals. Luc has carved out a vast empire for himself through both respectable ventures and shadowed dealings, but none of it brings him peace. One rain-slicked evening, from the balcony outside his favored courtesan's room at the infamous Bessie's brothel, Luc watches a line of enslaved girls being dragged in. Among them, a girl with hair like the sunset and fire in her eyes is struck for resisting. Something ancient stirs within him. On a not-so-uncharacteristic impulse, Luc decides to buy her. ... Aida, stolen from a faraway land, is young, bruised, and burning with defiance. Her presence was never meant to matter, but soon she becomes more than a passing distraction and inconvenience to Luc. She cracks something long buried in his soul: a memory of grace, a glimpse of light, a pull toward something he thought lost forever. Forced to share a living arrangement neither of them truly understands, their constant clashes breed awkwardness, tension, unexpected moments of humor, and something more. Can two broken souls, worlds apart, save each other from the darkness they were never meant to endure alone? *This story is original fiction with Luc as the main character, set in an alternative Victorian era. It is intended to be the prequel/spin-off to 'Until The End Of Time', where Luc played a major part toward the end. Slavery is depicted. Cover by @sulkytae ♦️Pink Diamond Award and 1st place of the Historical Fiction category of the 🌺🔥Phoenix Awards🔥🌺 @AthenaPersephone9 🏆Historical Fiction Category Winner in the Milestone Awards 2024 @YuHuaCommunity 🏅First place in the Historical Fiction category of the The Hot & Bothered Awards @gremlin

Lieutenant Marlowe Hughes was meant to be convalescing at his family's country home after his return from the Spanish front when a chance encounter with the high-spirited Lady Arabella Balfrey left him reeling. Marlowe is immediately infatuated with Arabella, who is beautiful and captivating, and who also happens to be the wife of Marlowe's closest childhood friend. Arabella urges him to forget his pain by being consumed by the intense connection that has blossomed between them, but Marlowe also finds a further complication is the opinion of a certain Miss Katherine Jennings, the surprisingly charming beauty that his mother has decided he should wed. Will Marlowe risk his family's approval, his deepest friendship, and society's scorn for Arabella's fiery embrace? Or will he discover that there is something more powerful than lust after all? Lust, lies, drama, and love abound in this completed Regency-era tale.

In the late nineties asexuality is all but ignored as an orientation. Jess doesn't understand her complex array of emotions or why she finds it so hard to relate to her fellow classmates. Catholic high schools and churches simply don't address the issue, and the internet is still nascent. Jess can't tell anyone the truth. Not even her best friend Care. Instead, she hides behind the guise of faith. Behind a mask of celibacy. Until she meets Eric, that is. He lets slip that he's asexual, and Jess wants to learn more. --- Watty Winner 2021 for best cover, best YA, and the Wattpad Books prize! --- Status: completed and unedited Rating: PG-15 for moderate language and frank discussions about sexuality Genre: teen fiction romance featuring two heteroromantic ace characters --- Cover designed using Canva Pro August 2020 --- Please note: This work is a teen fiction novelization of my multimedia novella "Mask of Celibacy".

Bianca Daleman only has two rules. First, never lose control. And second, never marry anyone until she is certain it won't end in divorce. While in Vegas for her best friend's bachelorette party, Bianca discovers her ex-boyfriend is engaged to a supermodel. Thrown back into the heartbreak of his leaving her, she breaks her first rule and spends the night in a drunken stupor. The next morning, when she wakes up with a splitting headache and a giant diamond ring, she assumes her friends have set up an elaborate prank. But the diamond is real and so is the confused man standing half-naked in the corner. Somehow, she is married. To a handsome, enticing stranger named Enrique Calderón. Getting out of the marriage she has no memory of entering seems easy until her friend's bachelorette party turns into a surprise elopement. With Bianca's ex as the best man. She simply cannot let him know how much he hurt her, so when he spots the ring on her finger, Bianca has no choice but to make it look like her relationship is flourishing. Which means she needs to find Enrique. And fast. ~*~ This is Book One of the Love Travels Collection. Book Two, Roatán Plunge, is now available on my profile. New chapters every Wednesday. ~*~

☆ 2022 ᴡᴀᴛᴛʏꜱ ᴡɪɴɴᴇʀ!! ☆ "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." On the cusp of the 20th century, blue blood heiress Lucy Penn has lost everything: her betrothed, her family and home, and even her ability to walk in the sunlight. As she struggles to acclimate to her new nocturnal existence, she makes the acquaintance of Dr. Thomas Reed: an intelligent and tortured immortal, still haunted by the horrors of his past. As the pair grow closer, Lucy becomes privy to a frightening world far below the surface of polite society, in which beings of ancient and unfathomable power live outside the confines of humanity. Carpe Noctem (or "Seize the Night") follows Lucy on her journey through the shrouded streets, eerie hospitals, and aristocratic parlors of nighttime London. As she seeks to exhume the insidious and terrifying purpose behind her transformation, Lucy finds herself drawn deeper into a dark nocturne world of unimaginable folklore and intrigue, begging the question: can love be found after death? HIGHEST RANKINGS ~ #1 Carpe Noctem #1 Period Fiction #1 Nocturnal #1 Gothic Romance #1 Gothic Horror #3 Dracula #3 Shakespeare #8 Vampire #17 Victorian #46 Historical Fiction