The Essential U. R. Ananthamurthy

Asya is the most promising ballerina the Royal Ballet has seen in years. Wildly ambitious, back-breakingly disciplined, and immensely driven, she has only one objective: prima ballerina. There is nothing she won't do to earn this once-in-a-generation title. But behind her ballerina grace she hides dark secrets of an inhumanly strict mother, pushing her body to cruel limits, and serial hookups with male dancers. Roman Zharnov is the star of the Russian ballet: young, successful, arrogant, beautiful, and worst of all, talented. He's come to London for a fresh start after earning himself the nickname 'the bad boy of ballet'. It is during a rehearsal that his eye falls on Asya, a nineteen-year-old soloist with spitfire in her eyes and a raw talent capable of silencing an auditorium. But Asya has a partner, and she wants to stay as far away as possible from the Russian prodigy with a reputation that won't seem to leave him alone. In the competitive world of classical ballet Asya is climbing the ranks, earning coveted parts and building a name for herself as a promising soloist. But all the while she is playing a dangerous game behind the curtain. Roman has found the one ballerina that can keep up with him and wants her to partner him, but he will soon realise that animals can't do what she does.

During the seventh year of my relationship with Oscar Ramsay, he goes back to his home country to inherit the position of heir to the Ramsay family from his younger brother, Oliver Ramsay, who passed away. He also accepts Oliver's widow, Evie Griffin, into the family. Every time after he sleeps with her, he will get down on his knees before me and beg me for forgiveness. "I'm sorry, Aurora. You're the only person I love, but none of this is of my own accord. I'll only be able to publicly announce our relationship after I successfully give Evie a baby to be the next family heir. "I'll be taking over the company by then, too, and give you a better life in the future." He even tells me resentfully that his father, Uriah Ramsay, had told him of his dying wish that Evie give birth to a baby boy. Over the next year, Oscar sleeps with Evie 200 times. It went from a few times a month to a few times a week. Eventually, Oscar just sleeps in her room every single night. After I lose sleep for 200 nights, Evie finally gets pregnant. The next day, Oscar and Evie get married at a very expensive and elaborate wedding at a church. Ingrid Ramsay, my daughter, gets upset when she sees Oscar and Evie kissing on the screen. "Mommy, why is Daddy getting married to someone else? You're his wife!" I cover Ingrid's eyes and smile bitterly. "Because Daddy doesn't love Mommy." Oscar doesn't know this, but I have never cared that other people didn't know about my real identity. I also don't care about his money or wealth. I only care whether or not he loves me. I'm no longer willing to face a man who cheats on me. Instead, I bring Ingrid with me as we leave him forever.

After being used and discarded by Leon, the man who destroyed his youth, Jade rebuilt himself under the watchful hand of a mafia leader who owns his freedom. But when his past lover reappears through a corporate contract, and one simple hookup that should have meant nothing, turned out to have been with that same man’s brother, Jade must decide just how much the past no longer matters to him, or whether he has been given a hand with which to get full closure on the same man who put him through hell. Will he fall a second time, or will he use the hand of another to get revenge and hurt another innocent in his wake?

Ava Addams never had the luxury of a normal childhood. Orphaned and raised on the streets, she learned early that survival meant doing whatever it took. At nineteen, she built a life for herself as a stripper—dangerous, unpredictable, but finally hers. For the first time, Ava believed she was in control of her future. Then one night changed everything. Giving her heart—and her innocence—to someone she never should have trusted awakened feelings she didn’t expect… and consequences she couldn’t escape. Just when Ava begins to believe life might finally be turning in her favor, a man from a past she thought she’d buried appears at her doorstep with a demand that could destroy everything she’s fought to build. Now Ava must face the truth she’s been running from. Because her past isn’t finished with her yet. And her “sweet life” is about to become her darkest nightmare.

“I reject you Marian Storm!” Those were the words she could never have dreamed to hear from the Alpha heir to her father’s pack. And certainly not at the New Year’s Moon celebration, in front of the whole pack. Leaving the pack compound that had been her prison for three years, Marian was heartbroken and determined never to return. But she knew she would, she must. After her rejection, the only desire left in her life was to kill the Alpha who had taken over her father’s pack, failing that, she would leave the pack and become a rouge wolf. She returns home for Christmas to attend her fallen family’s memorial service. On Christmas Eve, during the pack’s mistletoe ceremony, she receives a gift she never expected, a gift no one wanted – Reyland, the biological son of the Alpha she has sworn to kill. Would this gift given to her by the moon goddess help Marian fulfill her desire to reclaim her pack, or would it stir up new passions within her broken heart and consume her instead?

BLURB When Ember Vaughn's long-awaited shift reveals a weak white wolf, she's forced into a desperate bid for survival. Sold as a substitute bride, she discovers her mate in Alpha Landon Blackthorn - but their love is short-lived. His infidelity shatters her heart, and she's banished, left to face the darkness alone. Fate intervenes when Alpha Kieran Blackthorn, Landon's stepbrother, claims Ember as his mate. As they build a new life together, the ghosts of her past refuse to fade. Landon's obsession with Ember's child sparks a deadly rivalry between the two Alphas. Torn between loyalty and love, Ember must navigate treacherous pack politics and ancient secrets. But when a shocking betrayal threatens to destroy everything, she's forced to make a choice: surrender to the shadows or rise as the Luna she was born to be. Will Ember find redemption and love, or will the tangled web of power and deceit consume her?