B J Vale

Lucan Vale is engaged to Vanessa Smith because of a contract his old master signed years ago, without asking her first. Vanessa doesn’t think much of him. She sees him as useless and doesn’t know he’s been secretly helping her succeed. Her family feels the same. Her father ignores him, and her mother looks down on him, calling him dead weight. To them, Jason is nothing more than an unwanted guest. But one day, when they finally learn who he really is and all the things he’s done for them, it’s already too late to take back the way they treated him.

Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

When Clara Davis accidentally switches suitcases at the airport, she expects an awkward exchange— not a gun, stacks of cash, and a stranger calling her Mrs. Vale. Lucien Vale, a cold, beautiful man with blood on his hands, insists she’s his wife—and that men are hunting her. Dragged into a world of covert missions and deadly secrets, Clara must live under an alias to survive. But the longer she stays by his side, the more she questions everything: Is Lucien her captor or her protector? Is this marriage fake—or fate? One suitcase, one lie, one love that could cost them both their lives.

She wanted to be free, but did that mean surrendering everything to Damien and his whims? Tired of her domineering husband, Valerie Tanner decides it's time to start a new life somewhere else. However, when she moves to Live Oak, her brother's friends show her a life of total abandon where someone else calls the shots, and she has no choice but to obey. Once she gives in, Valerie descends into a dark morass of exploits that leaves her reeling and craving more, even though she fights each order she's given. Her mind screams at her that it's wrong, but her body pleads for her to continue. The question now is: how far will she fall before she loses herself? Or, is this the path to show her who she truly is?

Her husband killed her for her inheritance. Reborn three years before her death, she refuses to be the obedient, "useless" wife she once was. For three years, Ahtisa lived as a submissive wife to Adrian Vale, enduring his coldness and his mother's bitter humiliations. She gave up her career as a police officer and her identity just to support his ambitions. But on the night of their anniversary, the illusion shattered. She caught Adrian in a hotel room with Isabella the very girl Ahtisa had saved from the streets. Instead of showing remorse, Adrian struck her down, leaving her to bleed out on the floor while they gloated over stealing her late father’s forty-billion-dollar fortune. As her vision faded, only one man arrived to save her: Lucien Blackwell, the ruthless billionaire she had once personally arrested because of her husband's lies. With her last breath, she vowed to make them pay. Waking up three years in the past, the docile wife is gone. Back in the interrogation room on the day of her greatest mistake, Ahtisa refuses to arrest Lucien. Instead, she offers him a dangerous pact: Power for revenge. When Adrian arrives at the reading of her father's will, expecting her to blindly sign over her fortune, Ahtisa tears the contract to pieces in front of his greedy eyes. "I won't be transferring a single dime. And I am filing for divorce." Adrian begs for a second chance. But she is already untouchable with the city's most feared man guarding her from the shadows.

I married the wrong man for all the right reasons. When my brother is framed for murder, my twin sister Leyla makes a desperate deal: marry Lucien Vale, the dead man's son, for two years in exchange for our brother's freedom. But I know something Leyla doesn't: Lucien Vale was my first love. The man who destroyed me at seventeen and moved on with his life. So when Leyla takes the deal, I make a choice. I'll take my sister's place. Lucien wants a wife to stabilize his empire? He'll get one. Just not the one he expected. The only problem? Somehow, Lucien already knows its not Leyla. And everything, the contract, the murder, the manipulation—was designed to trap ME. Some vows are made in desperation. Others are made in revenge. And the most dangerous ones? Are built on lies.