"Little Valerie," said Kai, bending closer to me. "Are you blackmailing me into dating you?" He didn't seem particularly disturbed by the notion. In fact, he remained completely amused. "Yes?" Kai grinned. "Very mafia of you. I'm weirdly kind of into it." *** When Valerie Williams discovers that her long-term boyfriend is sleeping with her best friend, she devises a revenge plot to get back at them both. But when she asks bad boy Kai Delaney to pretend to date her, she never thought her heart would be on the line. *** Self-proclaimed pessimist Valerie Williams is definitely your glass-half-empty kind of girl. However, Valerie is surprisingly optimistic when her (ex) boyfriend cheats on her with her (also ex) best friend. Valerie doesn't believe in holding grudges; she believes in getting even. Which doesn't seem easy, until her boyfriend's least favourite person and her best friend's long-standing crush, the sarcastic, cocky and popular bad boy extraordinaire Kai Delaney crashes, quite literally, into her life. When Kai accidentally hits her car with what is practically a monster truck, and can barely afford to cover it, Valerie has an idea. If Kai agrees to pretend to date her, for long enough to make her boyfriend and best friend regret their actions, Valerie will give him the duration of their scam to pull together the money to pay her back. Revenge is a dish best served fake. [150,000-200,000 words]

Bronwyn Larson has spent her whole life not depending on her mother, a constantly recovering addict, until the moment her life was literally torn apart when an EF4 tornado ripped through their trailer park and her mom is found dead, miles away after the storm. Suddenly, her estranged father is a part of her life, a prominent state senator who's been absent since Bronwyn was born, a product of her parents' secretive affair. After living alone with her mother in a trailer for seventeen years, Bronwyn now has a stepmother and four new siblings, including an older brother and sister who seem skeptical, if not actually disproving, of Bronwyn living with them. While staying with them in their vacation lake house an hour away from what she called home, Bronwyn is hit with the bombshell that her mother's death is being treated as suspicious, with injuries inconsistent of being killed during the tornado. Estranged from everyone she knows, except her estranged new family, Bronwyn doesn't know who trust or who to believe about her mother's death. Torn between her life as the daughter of a single drug addict and the middle child of a well-respected senator, all while learning more about the mother she thought she knew, Bronwyn is forced to navigate through this new unfamiliar life alone, with this gut feeling she has. That her mother's killer isn't unfamiliar. 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐘 18th 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐏𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 Cover designed by Ashley Bandy

This is a story about bullying, and like the hundreds of other books on the topic, it will show you the harsh reality of what it is like to be discriminated, belittled, ridiculed for something you cannot control- how you look, who you love, or what you believe in. But unlike these books, this story's sole purpose is not to tear your heart out of your chest as you mourn over your loss of faith in humanity. Instead, this book will make you laugh and love alongside these characters. Just like in life, there will be moments of dread and surrender, but there will be just as many moments of happiness, laughter, and love. Naomi Lorraine, more commonly known as Nerdy Naomi with her thick-rimmed glasses and straight-A report card, is the most unpopular girl in her small school, Dartwell High. And even with the help of her snarky attitude, that doesn't stop her from getting bullied by everyone, every day. She only has to survive the laughs, insults, and bruises her senior year will bring before being free from the prison we know as high school. However, her final year in high school won't be how she planned when she catches the attention of the three new senior transfer students: Bennett Frazier, Jordan Wallace, and Declan Lynch. Their unordinary friendship may be what will save Naomi, not just from her bullies, but from herself. - This is a stand-alone story inspired by my 2015 Wattys Talk of the Town Award Winner TGGBB or "The Good Girl's Bad Boys: The Good, The Bad, and The Bullied". It is a separate work from TGGBB Series. Readers of TGGBB and Rereaders of this story will not be tolerated in spoiling the story for First Time Readers. Trigger Warning: Contains depictions of violence, bullying (based on racism, gender, sexuality, and more), sexual harassment and assault, mental abuse, and cursing in languages other than English (Yes, I have found a loophole on my no cursing rule).

"When I tell you that he hates me, you'll probably assume it's because he's a jerk...but you'd be wrong. He's not a jerk. I am." --- Several years ago tragedy struck Emma's home, leaving her broken... like a cup with cracks spiraling and slithering around the edges. Slowly, bitterness crept in like tar, hardening between each fracture to resemble a deceitful wholeness. She became a monster, and targeted her venom on the sweetest person she could find: Trinity Nixon. Too bad the boy Emma longed for was Trinity's brother. Now, as Emma fights to win the heart of the boy who despises her, she's forced to hide her demons. She paints her fragile cup in pinks, yellows, and oranges - all the colors of the sun. She paints on a smile, and an unusual sense of humor, so that the world will view her as bright and cheerful, when in reality she's breaking. But she's completely unprepared for the acidic truth that melts away the tar, demolishing her shell, and awakening the Emma White buried deep inside. --- Book 1 in The Dismantled Pride series *Story was previously titled "Faking It"