What Is The Setting Of 'Hard Times' And Why Is It Important?

To the world, she is Vivienne Blackwood—heiress to a billion-dollar empire and the crown jewel of her father’s corporate dynasty. To him, she is simply Vi, the only light in a city made of shadows. ​Vivienne is a woman trapped in a gilded cage. To escape the suffocating expectations of her father, Arthur Blackwood, she creates a secret identity, seeking refuge in the gritty corners of the city her father is trying to bulldoze. It’s there she meets Roman Volkov, a man whose touch is fire and whose past is a mystery. ​Roman is "The Ghost," a lethal mafia boss locked in a bloody war with the billionaire trying to dismantle his territory. He doesn’t do love, and he certainly doesn't do secrets. But in "Vi," he finds a woman who doesn't see the monster—until the truth becomes a weapon neither of them can outrun. ​As their secret romance intensifies, the war between Roman and Arthur reaches a fever pitch. Unaware that they are targeting the same man, Vivienne and Roman are caught in a lethal crossfire of lies and loyalty. When Arthur attempts to whisk Vivienne away to a life she never wanted, she makes a desperate choice to return to the man she loves—only to find herself at the center of a deadly standoff where the fathers and the lovers finally face off. ​In a world where blood is the only currency and loyalty is a death sentence, can love survive when the truth finally comes out? Or will they both be destroyed by the collision of their two worlds? ​Where loyalty bleeds into love, only the strongest survive.

Leonard Cole, was never meant to survive, Not the accident that took both his parents when he was seven, Not the poverty that swallowed him whole after, Not the world that looked at him every single day and saw absolutely nothing worth saving. But Leo survived. And not just that, he fought. Quietly, furiously, on an empty stomach and broken shoes, he fought for a future that nobody around him believed he deserved. Then he met Elena Hartwell, beautiful, warm, the daughter of a Texas millionaire, and for the first time in his life, Leo felt like maybe the universe owed him one good thing. But nothing in Leo's life has ever come without a price. Because someone has been watching him. Long before Elena. Long before school. Someone who knows something about Leonard Cole that even Leo himself doesn't know yet. And closer to home, Elvano Reyes, the dangerous son of a millionaire who wants Elena for himself, has a connection to Leo that goes deeper than jealousy. Deeper than rivalry. Something personal. Something that started long before either of them walked into the same classroom. As Elena's cold and calculating mother works tirelessly to destroy what Leo and Elena have built together, and secrets from the past begin crawling toward the surface, Leo's whole world is about to crack open in ways he never saw coming. He will lose everything and He will break completely. And then, he will rise in a way that shocks everyone who ever looked through him. But the biggest question isn't whether Leo becomes powerful. It's what he does with that power when the girl who shattered him comes crawling back. The decision will be yours.

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Now everything is changing...with everyone of us sweeping under the carpet the scars of yesterday's sins. Those scars are what kept me alive until you are all born to hear the story. The world government was powerful and taking advantage of the human colonial minds, they buried our freedom and equity. But now that we the Elites whom they educated and rose to revolts against the fingers that had fed us... What do you call it? Oh! yes they had termed it Rebellion. They did call us rebels, for seeking a small ration part of the best that nature has given to mankind. Al-sural-tu-Nas. This for mankind, tell ye that the beast you trained in the dark had turned to an angel in the day. We are filled from the pot of lies now that our bellies cannot contain what they obtain, the promises that were compromised, treaties that were breached, least they covered the black mails and lies with a blanket of Diplomacy. But now is the snatch of the gallon beer from the drunkard because now there is what when diplomacy fails.....is war. "Now we are free." Later in the future a seed germinates bearing fruits of the YESTERDAYS as she possess the abilities to time travel and set broken pieces together but this has consequences in the future of mankind. Read along

"Has anyone heard of this city?! No one seems to remember it, and something horrific might have happened to it."

A town with a strange past. A group of teenagers with secrets to hide. A world inside a box and a man who should no longer exist. Will they ever find out where they truly belong?