What Are Books Similar To The Real Mary Kelly?

On the day I rejected Isabelle Hale, Wall Street's newest golden girl, everyone thought I had lost my mind. She had everything: a Wharton degree, a national finance championship, a perfect family name, and a résumé polished enough to make doors open before she even knocked. But I knew what was hiding behind that name. Fifty years ago, her grandfather stole my grandmother's acceptance letter, her New York scholarship, and the future she had earned with her own hands. He used them to escape an Appalachian coal town with another woman, then built himself into a celebrated Ivy League professor who lectured rich students about ethics. My real grandmother, Grace Walker, was left behind in coal dust and shame. My mother grew up carrying the weight of that stolen life. They lifted me out anyway. I made it all the way to Manhattan, to a glass conference room at Northbridge Capital, where Isabelle sat across from me in a black suit tailored like victory. She thought her family name would protect her. She thought I would bow. Instead, I closed her file and said, "You didn't pass." By the next morning, they had fired me, dragged my name through the mud, and turned a press conference into my public trial. They forgot one thing. I didn't climb to the top of Wall Street to beg for a seat at their table. I came to take back every name, every chance, and every voice they stole from women like us.

The day my seven-year-old daughter needed a blood transfusion was the day my perfect life shattered. The child I had loved, protected, and sacrificed everything for... wasn't mine. My husband had known the truth all along. While I believed our daughter had died at birth, Marcus secretly made me raise the child he had with my best friend. They stole seven years of my life, my love, and my motherhood, all while laughing behind my back. So I walked away. I divorced the man who betrayed me, abandoned the life I built for him, and returned to my true identity, the billionaire heiress I had hidden for love. I swore I would never look back. Until I met a little girl with haunting red eyes and fragile lungs... a child who looked exactly like me. Her name was Lily. And the man raising her was the cold, untouchable billionaire, Alexander Cole. He refused to tell me where Lily came from. I refused to walk away. When I discovered Alexander's family was forcing him to find a wife, I made him an offer neither of us expected. A contract marriage. No love. No feelings. Just two broken adults protecting one little girl. But the more time I spent with Lily, the more convinced I became that she was the daughter I had mourned for seven years. Now my cheating ex-husband wants me back after discovering I'm the hidden heiress he threw away. My fake husband is becoming dangerously possessive. And if the truth about Lily ever comes out... Someone will lose everything.

On my ninety-ninth rebirth, I stopped fighting with the real heiress, Lily Hart. I accepted every false accusation she threw at me and let my relationships with my two childhood friends fall apart. I told myself it was fine. At least Wayne Fall was still on my side. That lasted until Lily's birthday gala, when her gown suddenly slipped and nearly left her exposed in front of everyone. Wayne pulled her into his arms and, for the first time, turned his anger on me. "Do you even remember who you are? You're not a Hart by blood. What makes you think you can compete with Lily?" What he didn't know was that every time I tried to expose Lily, everyone I cared about died in horrifying ways. In the first life, my childhood friend, Adrian Cole, was crushed beneath a freight truck, his skull shattered. In the second, my cousin, Ryan Hayes, fell from a skyscraper and was torn apart on impact. In the third, my fiancé, Wayne, was trapped in a blazing fire and burned alive... Adrian and Ryan threw me into the estate's artificial lake. I couldn't swim. Water flooded my lungs until tears streamed down my face, but no matter how desperately I begged for help, neither of them reacted. By the time my consciousness finally faded away, someone dragged me out of the water. Then I heard them talking. "Looks like she's finally learned her lesson. At least you won't have to keep hypnotizing her anymore, Wayne. I was starting to worry all those pills would fry her brain." "There'll definitely be some cognitive damage... But we didn't have a choice. Lily's the Harts' real daughter. If she refused to give in, she'd end up being pushed out of the family sooner or later." So, the countless "rebirths" I'd experienced were nothing more than an illusion. I'd simply been hypnotized. But I never needed to cling to a place in the Hart family. I had a family of my own too.

I’m the real daughter. When I came back to my “real” family, the fake daughter never lost her place. She’s still the one they love. The one they protect. They even had me marry a disabled man for her. I agreed—for my own reasons. Thought that would be the end of it. But the second I married into that family, she changed her mind. Told me to get the hell out. Said I stole her husband. And then my husband realized something. I wasn’t the bride he was supposed to marry.

Meet Esmerelda Sleuth. Sleuth is her name and investigating is her game. (Paranormal Investigating, that is.) Esmerelda makes a good living as an investigator in a rather progressive firm. She lives a stable and sensible life until she meets Lance; an old money "hottie" who works for a real estate firm next to her building. After accepting an invitation for a weekend getaway party, she quickly discovers that Lance has a secret. He is wealthy. That part is true. And, yes, he's procured a job as a realtor in the building next door. His secret is that he belongs to an underground society of humans who didn't abandon their connection to magic centuries ago when religion declared it evil and he has traveled through time specifically to find her and bring her back to his time to marry him. If that isn't enough of a far fetched tale to absorb, he informs her that she was born in his time to a family belonging to that same secret society and was promised in marriage to him as an infant. When enemies who didn't want to see the union of families take place made attempts on her life, her parents sent her into the future and erased her memories of them as a precaution. Possessing virtually no belief in magic, ghosts, psychics, time travel, etc., it takes some doing on Lance's part to convince her to believe his story and go back with him. When she does, the lies, deceit and attempts on her life start all over again. Will she escape emotionally and physically unscathed? "The Other Side Of the Mirror" is a steamy-paranormal-romance- mystery-thriller and book one of the Esmerelda Sleuth series.

She thought she had it all—a peaceful life, a loving relationship, and a future she could finally count on. But everything shattered the moment she discovered the truth. He never planned to stay. He never planned to love her. He only wanted the child. Forced to make an impossible choice, she vanished, determined to protect the life growing inside her. For years, she lived in silence, hiding the truth, raising a secret no one could ever know. But fate has a cruel way of circling back. When the past resurfaces in the most unexpected way, everything she fought to protect hangs in the balance. The lies. The love. The billion-dollar secret. Some stories aren’t meant to stay buried. And some truths refuse to stay hidden.