Marriah Roberts feels like she's living someone else's life and fulfilling someone else's dreams. Her life has always been pre-planned and predictable. But then unfortunate circumstances end with her and a wealthy stranger named Will Grayson being captured and held hostage by the country's most notorious criminal- Dominic Black. Will isn't the perfect man everyone thinks he is. He's done things he's not proud of. Things that make him dangerous. But when he and Marriah are thrown together into a dangerous new world he's forced to look at life with a new perspective. Spending time with the fiery but naïve Marriah Roberts awakens his long-lost conscience. He can't help but feel an overwhelming urge to protect her but what if the person she needs protection from is him? Trying to escape the evil clutches of the dangerous criminal Dominic Black, the two make an unusual team and develop an unbreakable bond. Marriah soon finds out the true meaning of friendship and trust. She discovers that someone in her life has been harboring a dark secret. Someone she cares for deeply. Can she save herself without losing everything? Cover designed by Anastasia Wright

Going through my pictures, I went to the one that I had just taken, and the phone slowly slipped out of my grasp. What had escaped my notice before is that the couch I had taken the picture on was against a window, which showed the backyard of the house. But in this picture, it wasn't an empty backyard. No, behind my smiling face was another one, outside the window. It was his face. Covered with a black ski mask, watching me. *** All 19-year-old Layna wanted to do was forget about the guy that broke her heart, and move on with her new boyfriend Brian. But instead, she unwittingly attracted the attention of a stalker. Someone who had been watching her every move for a month, plotting and planning for the perfect moment when he could take her. What Layna never would have expected was that when he finally kidnaps her, she would have to undergo "The Test". The Test that the girls before her had gone through. The one they failed, and payed heavily for. Will she pass The Test or will she die like the others?

It doesn't matter how she ended up in this four-walled room. What matters is she gets out. ***** After a night out in New York City, Liliana Rossi wakes up in a windowless room with no recollection of how she got there. And she's not alone. The dark and tattooed Mateo Aguilar is also held captive. As the two struggle to survive and hatch an escape plan, they also struggle with growing attraction toward each other, facing Lili with the biggest question yet: is Mateo the reason she's here, or the one who's going to save her? ✨ Wattys 2018 Shortlist & Featured Story ✨ Content warning: this story references themes that readers might find triggering, including drug use and sexual assault. [[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]] Cover designed by Stefanie Saw

When a case of mistaken identity leads to an innocent girl being kidnapped by a gangster, will one man bent on revenge push them together or destroy them? ***** Hayden King and Violet Smith couldn't be more different. While he was a feared gangster, she was a simple college student, a delicate flower whose petals had been crushed by a stranger a long time ago. But what they didn't realize is that they had more in common than they initially thought. Their lives were interlinked in a complicated way because of some sick twist of fate. So how will the big revelation affect their life? Will he able to save Violet from the demon of her dreams? Let's find out. [[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]]

Wren Martin is socially awkward. She blocks off herself to the world, hiding behind her favorite hoodie. All she wants to do is keep a low profile, and graduate well enough to qualify for a college scholarship. But then a babysitting job leads her to cross paths with Asher Reed, Eastview Highʼs notorious athlete. When a field injury kickstarts his senior year, heʼs turning his free time and attention to Wren. And maybe she might not want to be invisible after all. ***** [Watty's Collector's Edition Winner] [TFA Runaway Prize Winner] [[word count: 150,000-200,000 words]] Cover designed by Ashley Santoro

Hadley Jamison doesn't know what to think when she hears that her classmate, Archer Morales, committed suicide. She didn't exactly know him, but that doesn't stop her from feeling like there was something she could have done to help him. So to Hadley's surprise, on the very night of Archer's funeral, she has a run in with Death himself and is offered the chance to go back in time to stop Archer from ending his life. The catch? She only has twenty-seven days to do it. And if Hadley doesn't succeed? Well, she doesn't want to think about that.

Ashley Martin has been through more grief than a person experiences in their entire life and carries baggage that no kid should ever entail. Tyler Miller is the school's scandalous bad boy who acts on impulse, blinded rage and will single-handedly destroy anybody who stands in his way. Then all of a sudden, they're thrown together and despite their destructive past, they're forced to overcome their differences. It's time for Ashley to stop running away from his death glares, blank stares and that spine-chilling scowl that reminds her just how little he cares. Driven by a whirlwind of secrets, a class assignment and midnight walks into the past, things should start working out. But then fate kicks in; hard-hitting and soul-crushing. It's a fight-or-flight situation, a reincarnation of her past, a chance for him to right the wrongs he did by her. A second chance is like giving someone an extra bullet for their gun after they missed you the first time round. So here's Tyler's gun. Here's Ashley's heart. And here's to their second chance, however hopeless it may seem.

❇️ 2018 WATTYS WINNER! The Originals category ❇️ - "The Breakfast Club" meets "Nancy Drew" in this most unusual YA Mystery. SUMMARY: Five high school students, with little in common other than being descendants of the town founders, are forced to work on a history project together. But when their history project uncovers evidence of a long-buried town secret, the kids must piece together the clues behind their discovery before its legacy comes back to haunt them. ***** Using ACTUAL, archival material (some dating as far back as 1776), The Descendants weaves a tale of mystery and intrigue, constructed entirely from real photographs, documents, and snippets of history from a small, rural town in New Hampshire. What Dan Brown did with conspiracy theories in "The DaVinci Code" and Ransom Riggs did with historical photographs in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," I will attempt to do in "The Descendants," but with teen protagonists and the Cheshire County Historical Society. :-) Why? 'Cause I'm crazy like that! Yeah, I know...History?! Blah! But it actually turned out really fun! :-)

TWO BOYS AND A BADASS GIRL. 'When life gives you lemons, Throw it back and ask for chocolate.' This is how XENA WILDER deals with everything in her life. The ultimate badass girl who rules her life like a queen. She is a broken piece of art; flawed yet fabulous. 'Shoes Or People if they hurt you, They are not your size.' - BLAZE MALCOM, The boy with looks of a Greek God and heart made of Ice. His past his hidden dark behind a gun waiting for someone to unravel the truth. 'Rule No. 1: Don't give a fuck about what they think.' The only rule THEODORE HARLEY has ever obeyed in his life. He has got blood of royalty and genes that could make any girl swoon. He is the nice guy with roses but if he looses his patience the devil shivers. When life brings them together their past intertwines with an explosion of Drama, Betrayal and most of all Heartbreaks.

❝ Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and two children. The boy was called Hänsel and the girl Grethel. ❞ [ a retelling of Hansel and Gretel ] • disturbing