Anne Arundel County Public Library Novels & Stories

On New Year’s Eve, a poolside party was held at the hospital. There, my fiancee Valerie Charlton’s medical prodigy junior colleague, Cyrus Zeigler, drew the wildcard in a party game. His task was to select a woman from the attendees and enact an explicit scene in front of everyone. He scanned the crowd, and his gaze landed on Valerie. “Valerie, you’re about to get married. I know I can’t have you. So let me have this one time. Okay?” Valerie’s eyes welled up, and she was about to nod. I scoffed and tossed the unsigned medical equipment purchase contract onto the table. “You’d better think carefully. Either he gets lost, or your family’s hospital shuts down for good. Your choice.” Cyrus glared at me angrily when he saw that Valerie was torn with indecision. “Is it that Mr. Everest can’t take a joke? He’s already controlling everything you do before the wedding. After you get married, he’ll probably keep you in a cage.” Valerie calmed down. Then, she turned to me and said scornfully, “You are a grown man. Have some grace. What era are we living in? Do you have to flaunt your masculinity all the time?” I watched calmly as they walked toward the pool. Then, I turned and made a phone call. “Since she doesn’t care about this marriage, she can watch the Charlton family crumble.”

My fiancé slapped me across the face in front of the entire academy. He did it to save face for another girl. That same day, I deleted every way he could reach me and announced that our engagement was over. No one believed me. Orion Draven and I grew up together. From the age of six to eighteen, I followed him like a shadow for twelve whole years. Everyone knew I loved him. Everyone knew I would forgive him. Even Orion thought so. On the day I left Ironhold Academy, he stopped me at the gate. For the first time, there was panic in his voice. “Why? Just because I hit you?” I looked him straight in the eye and said each word clearly. “Yes. Because you hit me.”

Everyone has gathered around to play games together. The current game requires all players to transfer red wine to each other via our mouths. Before my fiance, Teodoro Lamperti, is able to transfer the wine to me, his female best friend, Cristina Ghedini, shoves me away before kissing him on the mouth right away. "What are you doing? Today is Serafina's big day, you know!" Teodoro might be complaining on the outside, yet he's patting Cristina gently on the back. The atmosphere in the villa becomes eerily silent. Everyone stares at me as I sit on the floor in a wretched manner. Cristina merely smiles nonchalantly. Then, she leans against Teodoro's shoulder. "Don't be so petty, Serafina. Teodor and I are as thick as thieves since we were kids. We're used to sharing everything together." Teodoro begins advising me as well. "It's just a game, Serafina. You've always been gracious, haven't you? Don't act like a sore loser." Everyone thinks that I'll explode into rage and flip the table of food over, like I had done in the past. But this time, I just draw to my feet and take off the engagement ring. Then, I slide it onto Cristina's finger. "This ring is yours now. Congratulations on your marriage. Remember to invite me to your wedding."

At our bachelor party, Harry Cole, my fiance and I played Truth or Dare with his friends. We spun the bottle, and it stopped in front of Joanna, a woman he had known since childhood. The dare was to do the deed with the person placed right next to you, and Harry had been sitting beside her the entire evening. Feeling uncomfortable, I quickly said, “Why don’t you just pick Truth instead of Dare?” Joanna, however, did not back down. She sent me a look full of contempt and replied, “Don’t be such a prude, Suzie. It’s not that big of a deal. If I don’t mind, why should you?” She then looked at Harry. “Do you mind, Harry?” Everyone around us started cheering them on. Someone said, “Suzie can’t have fun to save her own life. If Harry doesn’t want to, I will gladly do it. Pick me, Joanna!” I grabbed Harry’s hand and turned to leave, but he flung my hand off. “What about Joanna? She has no one to help her if I leave. We’re about to get married, Suzie. Can’t I have one last night of freedom?” After saying that, he pinned Joanna under him, and his friends just cheered even more. I stared at him and Joanna. At that moment, I no longer saw a future for us.

Eight years after I married that award-winning actor, he publicly declared he was dating the top starlet, Celine James. He even posted a picture of the two of them celebrating their adopted “baby’s” birthday. I did not call him to interrogate him as usual. Instead, he hurriedly explained, “It’s just a pet we adopted. As its ‘dad’, I have to be there for its birthday.” I said calmly, “Rather than adopting a furbaby, why don’t we get a divorce? Then you can have an actual baby with her.”

I suffered from a skin condition. I scratched myself in the library, and millions of netizens spammed my private inbox. Only then did I find out that a girl accused me of harassing her. I took out my diagnostic report to defend my innocence, but the girl cried pitifully. “You really know how to make an excuse for yourself! How could someone innocent like me frame you?” Even my elder brother spoke up for her! “Why would she frame you of all people? Can’t you take a look at yourself?” I could not bear the cyberbullying, and I died from a sudden heart attack the day before the court hearing. My grandfather could not accept my death, and he collapsed into a coma. My parents cut off ties with my brother before they committed suicide at home. Meanwhile, the girl did not just successfully make her way into graduate school, but she also dug open my grave and used my ashes to make fireworks. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day when she had asked me to reserve a seat in the library.

What if you are successful but has no one to share? What makes a perfect plan? Penelope Quinn Cabello has a very successful career, but she has no family. No matter how successful her career was, she still felt empty. She felt like her life has no purpose; all her money and achievement were nothing because she has no one to share her success with. That's why she came up with a plan. She wants to have a child of her own. The only problem was, she has no boyfriend. She never had one, actually, but that fact will not stop her from fulfilling her plan.

After the earth is rendered inhabitable due to global warming and climate change in the year 3000, humans led by various space explorations seek out new planets to live. A team led by the ISRO land at a white dwarf binary planet T-786, a where the day never ends. 500 years later, a highly successful businessman who has a dark hobby - he is a serial killer finds out abut a fabled object of power being sought by a terrorist group. He has the power and the skill to stop the massacre he know that will happen.

This was never truly a choice. It was an ultimatum. A marriage to a stranger. A business contract disguised as a wedding. Vanessa slid a pen across the table. “All you have to do is sign.” Selena stepped forward and stared down at the marriage agreement. Adrian Kingston. Even the name felt dangerous. But the moment she pictured her mother lying unconscious in that hospital bed, her hesitation shattered. Before her heart could stop her, Selena picked up the pen and signed her name across the paper. The ink glided beneath her hand, sealing away the last fragments of her freedom. Vanessa smiled immediately. “Good decision.” Meanwhile, across the city, on the top floor of Kingston Global, a tall man dressed in black sat behind a polished wooden desk. Adrian Kingston. Sharp features, cold dark eyes, and an overwhelming presence that made the entire room feel tense in his silence alone. His fingers tapped steadily against the file resting on his desk while his gaze remained fixed on the photograph attached to the front cover. “Mr. Kingston, the Reeds have responded,” said Nathan Cole, Adrian’s longtime executive assistant. “She accepted?” Adrian asked coldly. “Yes.” Adrian leaned back slightly in his chair and reached for the glass of whiskey resting beside the file. Selena Reed. An ordinary woman with a quiet background. No social influence, no scandals, nothing particularly remarkable.

Cincinnati Roxanne Lopez isn't the reserved type, she's a firecracker who flies off the handle in the mere snap of a manicured finger. Her identity and dignity being the most precious thing to her, Cincinnati holds a secret that pays most of her bills and kept it within her very own sealed lips. She was an entrepreneur but of goods more perishable and delightful. Storm, on the very brink of losing it all to fifteen of his board members, employs her help and expertise in bringing the offenders down thereby rattling another skeleton from her past. Fifteen bandits, over a handful of cities, the splatter of blood, money and sex. Delve into the story of Cin and Storm.