From The Dust Returned

After having her everything turn to ashes, human protagonist Adeline has to venture out the world lost and alone to find peace for herself. However, with a painful past still chasing her and a surfacing mystery which was supposed to be hidden deep inside of her, she soon finds out that peace is just not meant for her. Just how much will it possibly take her to rise from the ashes? Warnings: Mature language

Maeve Thalorien spent five years in a cell for a crime she doesn't remember committing. They called her parents traitors. Said they betrayed the kingdom. And then they erased them. On the day she turns twenty, Maeve is released-not as a free woman, but as a weapon. Sent straight into Aetherion Academy, where bonded beasts choose their riders and the kingdom's deadliest heirs are forged. Some bond with phoenixes. Some with wolves. Some with creatures powerful enough to burn cities to ash. But the most dangerous bonds were the ones that vanished after the war. Maeve was taught they turned on humanity. That they were lost. Uncontrollable. Evil. She was taught a lot of things. And the sky has a habit of remembering what people try to forget. The moment Maeve steps into the academy, the lies begin to crack. Whispers follow her name. The Viremont heir watches her like a problem he can't solve. And something ancient stirs beneath the world-something that should not exist anymore. Because when the bonding ceremony begins... the sky remembers her. And so does what it was never meant to give back. Some bonds are chosen. Some are forced. And some were never supposed to return at all.

The once-glorious empire is in ruins, its capital buried beneath ash, following a bloody uprising. A competent scavenger who has been hardened by grief, Zara endures in the broken world, plagued by memories of the empire's devastation, particularly the ruthless purge that claimed her family's lives. She discovers a secret amid the rubble: a wounded man named Kael who says he is the final heir to the crumbling empire. Zara reluctantly consents to assist him, viewing his survival as a way to make amends. But Kael isn't interested in bringing back the empire he was born into. Rather, he is dangerously knowledgeable about a weapon that could upset the delicate balance of power in the world. An unforeseen attachment forms between Zara and Kael, complicating their objective as they create an uneasy alliance to traverse the lethal world of bounty hunters, imperial loyalists, and rebels. Zara is compelled to face her own troubled past—including the potential that her long-lost brother is still alive and fighting for one of the factions—as they delve deeper into the empire's hidden secrets. After the rebels kidnap Kael and torture him to find the weapon, Zara must decide whether to risk everything to save him or let him perish. Zara and Kael are pushed to the limit by their increasing love and the burden of their common past as they work against the clock to destroy the weapon and keep it out of the wrong hands. Will the fires of their decisions consume them or will they find salvation in a world of ashes?

Lira was never meant to survive the fire. Marked by an ancient spiral and hunted by the bloodline that should have protected her, she has spent her life being shaped into someone else’s weapon. A queen. A mate. A vessel for power older than memory. But Lira has learned the cost of obedience. When the ruins of her past rise again and Draven returns with promises of thrones, legacy, and a kingdom built from blood, Lira is forced to face the truth buried beneath every scar. The spiral was never only a curse. It was a calling. And now that calling has awakened something inside her that even the dead still fear. Kael stands beside her, bloodied, loyal, and bound to her by more than survival. But love cannot shield her from what waits beneath the Bone Moon. Because Draven doesn’t only want Lira back. He wants the future she carries. And Lira will burn every throne before she lets her child inherit chains.

In a world where magical beings are hunted to extinction, Ember is the last known Phoenix gifted with the power of rebirth and fire, she’s a force of legend feared by many and coveted by those in power. After her latest rebirth, she wakes disoriented, with no memory of her past life’s, in the ruins of a burned out city. Hail, a dangerous bounty hunter bound by a cursed contract finds her. He’s been tasked with delivering her to a shadowy organization that tends to use her powers or destroy her. But as they journey together, he begins to question his mission. Drawn to her fiery spirit even as he battles his own demons.

From the outside, her life looked like a storybook — young love, a growing family, and the hope of a future built on hard work and devotion. But behind closed doors, it was a different world — one filled with control, silence, and bruises too deep for anyone to see. Before she turned twenty-one, she had already survived a violent marriage, the constant threat of losing her children, and a battle between truth and lies that nearly destroyed her. Every time she tried to rebuild, life seemed to find a new way to break her — a false accusation that stole her children, a fire that turned into murder, and the death of the man who had helped her believe in love again. Echos of Ruin is the raw, unflinching story of a woman who refuses to stay broken. Through violence, betrayal, and unbearable loss, she finds the courage to keep moving — to fight for her truth even when no one will listen. It’s a story of motherhood and survival, of loving and losing, and of discovering that sometimes the only way to save yourself is to walk through the fire. Told with haunting honesty and sharp clarity, this memoir is not just about what was taken from her — it’s about what she refused to surrender: her spirit, her strength, and her voice. Because even when the world tried to silence her, she learned the most powerful truth of all — the human heart can shatter a thousand times and still find the strength to beat again.