A River In Darkness: One Man's Escape From North Korea

Jim Charleston is my foster brother. He and I have been dating in secret for 10 years. On the day we decide to go public, Jim receives an undercover mission assignment to Duskhaven, where he has slim chances of returning alive. The night before he left, he held me and promised, "If I come back alive, I will marry you in a grand wedding. I'll stay by your side forever." Foolishly, I broke ties with my family and waited for him. I became the laughingstock of the entire high society circle. Three years later, Jim returns but with a ruined reputation and enormous debts. Kneeling like a broken man before our father, he firmly declares, "I promised Anne I would take care of her for life, Dad!" The woman named Anne hid timidly behind Jim, clutching her pregnant belly tightly. Dad turns to me instinctively. Everyone is waiting for me to lose my mind and cause a scene. However, I just smile. Right then and there, I accept the engagement ring from the good-for-nothing playboy. On the day of my engagement party, Jim drives in recklessly. With a gun in his hand, he shouts, "Cecilia Forrest! If you dare go through with this marriage, I'll kill him!"

River Barlowe is kind, beautiful, and smart. She has a childhood best friend, Zach Grey, who happens to be a sexy, smart, rich, well fit guy. He has a secret though, he's been in love with her since elementary. They just graduated from high school and are off to the same College along with two other friends. Unfortunately, their friendship will face challenges the moment they step foot on the college campus. A frat party takes place two days before classes start. All newcomers are welcome. Well of course they are, because we all know what happens to fresh meat…they become bait for hungry, cute, horny predators. River is peer pressured by her friends to go. There she will encounter a gorgeous football player, Alec Madden. A boy who captures her attention and becomes Zach's nightmare. Will their friendship withstand the bumps in the road? Will River fall for the pretty playboy or will she realize that love was the boy who stood with her all those years? She has a decision to make, one that won’t be easy, but one that will seal her destiny. ***Standalone Book***

Five years after our son was born, I finally faced the truth: my wife didn't love me—or our boy. Determined to end this miserable marriage, I made plans to leave and take our son with me. But fate had other ideas. A car accident cost me a kidney and took our son's eye. At my lowest point, my usually distant wife fell to her knees right in the hospital corridor, begging for forgiveness. She swore she would spend the rest of her life taking care of us. We decided to give her one last chance—a 100-day trial. If she made it, we'd stay together. But on the ninety-ninth day, my son and I overheard her talking to the attending physician. "Emma," the doctor said, "did you really arrange that accident to secure organs for Daniel Carter's son? You did that to take a kidney from your husband and an eye from your son—was it worth it?" Emma Evans's voice was eerily calm. "It was worth it. As long as Daniel is happy, I'd do anything." "And what if your husband and son find out?" She fell silent for a moment, then instinctively touched the wedding ring on her hand. "Then they'll never know. They just want a family; I'll do everything I can to make up for it." So the "changed woman" we thought we knew was just an act—a carefully built lie. The happiness my son and I had begun to believe in was nothing more than a story she'd crafted to protect the person she really loved. Every kindness, every effort—it had all been quietly weighed and paid for in advance.

After a devastating breakup with Zane his unfaithful ex boyfriend, and the collapse of his family, Jude’s world couldn’t get more complicated — until it does. A drunken night leaves him waking up in a stranger’s bed, with no memory of how he got there. Oliver claims he only helped, but Jude doesn’t believe a word. Then the unthinkable happens: Oliver walks through his front door, introduced as the son of his father’s new girlfriend. Forced to live under the same roof, Jude’s suspicion grows — and so does the pull between them. But the closer they get, the more tangled the lies become. Some connections were never meant to happen. Some are impossible to escape.

--- River Witch Some bloodlines are bound to water. Some debts are never paid in full. When Evelyn Blake returns to the remote riverside village of Elowen after fifteen years away, she expects grief and silence—but not the whispers that rise from the mist-covered water. As bodies resurface and ghostly lights drift through the fog, Evelyn uncovers a buried legacy: a pact made generations ago between her family and a nameless spirit that haunts the river. With the curse's final reckoning approaching, Evelyn must confront the sins of her bloodline, unravel the truth behind her ancestor’s forbidden ritual, and decide whether to escape the fate written for her—or embrace it. In a village where no one speaks of the drowned, the river never forgets. And it always collects what it’s owed.

Sometimes we are lost, but when we are lost, we can always be found. This is the story of one brave young woman's journey to freedom.