Annie's Archive Ebooks Novels & Stories

“You doing OK?" “Is this all Annie's stuff?" the little girl asked. “In the boxes?" “Yes, angel," Annie said gently. “You think it's a lot?" “I don't know." Cindy contemplated the matter. “It's your clothes and shoes?" “Yep. Any my books, and lots and lots of pictures." “Pictures?" Her dark eyes lit up. “Of Aunty Sarah and Uncle Noah when they were little?" “Yep." “Ohhhhh. I'd like to see those."

As Annie stood up, she shot a vicious glance at Lucy. She had thought Lucy was just a fool good for menial tasks, but it turned out she was playing dumb all along. Hah, she'd deal with Lucy after taking care of Renee. Thinking of Renee made Annie even more smug. Just a minute before entering the office, she had seen Renee still trying to salvage her stained sketches. Trash will always be trash, no matter how hard you try to fix it. Confidently, she took out her USB drive and said to Renee's pale face, "Good thing I prepared a digital version."

The Great Library was a cathedral of silence, a place where the air felt like velvet and the dust motes danced in shafts of eternal, golden light. Anna moved through the obsidian aisles with a lightness she didn't quite understand, her feet silent against the polished floor. She was wearing a dress of gossamer white, a garment that felt like a second skin of clouds. In her arms, she cradled a stack of books so high they nearly obscured her vision,leather bound tomes of McKinnley history, scrolls of celestial magick, and genealogies that stretched back to the first dawn.

The lines inside it were restless and precise and strangely beautiful, like a private language. Anaan made lists. She found one once a handwritten one, left on the table in the second sitting room where he had apparently been sitting when her call came in and it was not a business list. It was a list of titles: books, she realized. Books he had been meaning to read. One of them was a title she had mentioned in passing three weeks ago, and it appeared near the top of the list with a small asterisk beside it that she recognized as the mark he used for things he considered genuinely important. She put the paper back exactly as she had found it.

After a brief scolding from my teacher, I was sent to assist the librarian. The library was a sanctuary of towering shelves and soft whispers, its grandeur unexpectedly breathtaking. The scent of aged books and polished wood wrapped around me like a comforting cloak. Wandering through the aisles, I stumbled upon a dimly lit corner that exuded an eerie presence. A single book stood out—its cover blank and edges charred. Curious, I picked it up. "Weird," I muttered, flipping through its brittle pages. My blood ran cold when I saw my name inscribed on the last page.

Aria Vance never wanted a new family. After her mother marries a billionaire businessman Richard Hayes, eighteen-year-old Aria is forced to leave behind the life she knew and move into the enormous Hayes estate. But there is only one problem. Richard already has a son, Jaxon Hayes. And Jaxon immediately hates Aria. To him, Aria and her mother are outsiders who have invaded his home, his family, and potentially his inheritance. He makes Aria’s first year at Crestwood College miserable, constantly reminding her that she doesn't belong. But Aria has one secret, Blake Reed, Crestwood’s golden-boy hockey captain. She's admired him from afar for months but lacks the confidence to approach h