"I would have burned this world to keep you safe." Her breath hitched. "And you were never really mine to protect," he finished. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alisa was never meant to survive the night she falls into the moonlight reflection. But the water does not claim her. Instead, glowing spirits rise to meet her-five wandering souls made of light and memory, bound between worlds by regret and unfinished love. They become her guardians through a fractured world where reality bends and destiny listens. They lead her to a world that looks like Earth-but feels wrong. There, Alisa crosses paths with Matthew, a feared Commander trained to hunt the impossible. He should have seen her as a threat. Instead, he becomes her refuge-offering shelter inside a house guarded by weapons, silence, and a man who does not know how to love without protecting. As Alisa hides the truth of her being and the magic woven into her fate, something slow and dangerous grows between them. Desire restrained by discipline. Trust built in stolen moments. A bond strong enough to bend worlds. If I Stay Here is a dark, slow-burn romantic fantasy about lost souls, forbidden protection, and the kind of love that asks you to choose between freedom and the person who saved your life. -----------------------------------------

Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on the fictional estate of Hartfield in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her elderly widowed father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband, John. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr. Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking.

The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.