[2025 Wattys Shortlist] After getting cut off by her wealthy, business-obsessed parents, Emily Grayson finds herself broke, stranded in a small town, and working at a boba café, something she never imagined in her wildest dreams. Her first days on the job are a disaster, her patience (and Jake Sherlind's) running thinner than the tapioca pearls she keeps burning. Jake, the charming yet hardworking guy with big dreams, has no patience for entitled rich girls who don't know how to hold a job. But when Emily starts proving him wrong, their tension brews into something neither of them expected. Between spilled drinks, late-night confessions, and an orange stray cat that won't leave the back door, Emily begins to wonder... maybe losing everything was exactly what she needed to find herself. A small-town rom-com about growth, second chances, and love that's better steeped with time.

[thewattys2025 SHORTLIST] "You're nothing. Just a sad, pathetic girl hiding behind your books. Maybe if you weren't so weak, you wouldn't be such an easy target."-Ethan "I don't care what you think of me, Ethan. I never have."-Mira

Seven days before Christmas, a snowstorm sweeps across the town of Churchill. Sydney gets snowed in at the Sugar Sweet Café with Dion Gallenger, a friend she's known since high school. According to the forecast, the weather won't be letting up for at least two days. So the two are stuck at the café for forty-eight hours. Alone. And that's only the beginning. Over the the next week, a lot is about to go down for the pair (such as flaming Christmas trees, inhumanly large and lopsided gingerbread houses and... Rudolph appearing at the front door?). Is this a good time to mention the three-year crush Sydney's been harbouring on Dion? No? Well toss that into the mix too. It's about to be the wildest Christmas season Sydney and Dion have ever experienced.

Ava, an innocent small-town girl, gets sucked into the world of underground fighting when she catches the eye of Shawn Michaels, the irresistibly hot reigning champion. ***** Ava McAdams isn't sure what to expect when she moves to Boston for college. Her sheltered upbringing leaves her exposed to a harsher world, and one complicated male in particular -- Shawn Michaels, the tattooed and intimidating underground fighter who is nothing like anyone she has ever met before. But is falling for him worth the risk of knowing she might lose him every time he enters the ring? [word count: 100,000 - 150,000 words] Cover designed by Ren T

Status:Completed(edited) Language:English Oliver was used to receiving tons of attention from his hundreds of fans, receiving letters of admiration that he would always label as "trash" until his best friend Blake forced him to read one of the letters. This one letter turned out to be something Oliver looked forward to receiving every week. A secret admirer that he took interest on, will he ever find out who this secret admirer is?

-polite -intelligent -civil -ladylike -well-mannered -respectable Alexis Worthing is none of the above. She craves adventure, and being trapped in a small town in North Carolina is certainly not helping anything. Her imagination never fails to get her into trouble, and her wild spirit can barely take being trapped anymore, so when she accidentally crashes into a tall stranger in the midst of a police chase, what smarter thing to do than hop in his truck and get out of the state? After all, you only live once, right?

Rosalie Harness is a typical seventeen year old teenager, she goes to school, dates, parties and all other typical teenage things. But there is one thing which is not so typical, she got kicked out of her own house, by her own parents! Not because she is a rebel, far from that, simply because she existed. So when she finds a perfect place to stay, there is one problem. She has a roommate, a male roommate, who happens to be the hottest boy in her school; Vincent Clarke. Secrets are told. Deep Secrets. And you realize, not everything is what it seems...

For the first time in her memory, Marley Harkin isn't spending the holidays in the city. No, this year her family is spending Christmas in the Hamptons, with a grandmother she barely knows. With tensions already running high, it doesn't help that Marley ends up catching the eye of the last person she probably should have: the son of her grandmother's business rival. As if this holiday season wasn't going to be awkward enough.

What sucks more than being overweight? Falling for someone you don't have a shot in hell with. Ella Carson has always felt like the odd girl out. Bullied for being overweight all throughout high school, she decided to make a fresh start for herself and spend her last summer before college with her grandparents in Myrtle Beach. She expected to write on the beach in her journal to try and overcome the insecurities she's been unable to shake for years, maybe even make a friend or two, but what she didn't expect to happen was have a hot-shot athlete fall head over heels in love with her. Meet Patrick Connelly: a pretentious jock who has a lot more to him than just a knack for basketball. The two of them together are polar opposites, but as their summer unravels they begin to realize just how much they have to learn from one another.

❝My parents warned me about the drugs on the street but never about the one with the electric blue eyes and heartbeat.❞ Nothing could compare to the luxurious lives five teenagers lived in Covington Prep. Scandals, parties, paparazzi were embedded into their daily lives. But when secrets that were supposed to be six feet under get dug up, Grey Rutherford finds out that not everything can be bought using money. [extended synopsis inside] © Birdcrowns 2017 #97 | TF