Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program Novels & Stories

I have a histrionic personality. On top of that, I'm extremely attracted to good-looking people. Otherwise, I wouldn't have endured Caleb Johnson's sharp, vicious tongue and picky preferences for 99 days just for his looks. But one day, I overhear him telling his best friends—a guy with the top grades in school and the school bully—to seduce me. That way, I'll take the initiative to break up with him. I clench my fists, feeling the way my hands tremble. No, I'm not trembling out of sadness… I'm doing it out of excitement. Finally, I don't have to stare at just one handsome face! Marcus Thorne looks so hot with his gold-rimmed glasses. Meanwhile, there's Asher Prescott with his tanned skin and wild personality… Mmm… I want them both…

It's 11:30 pm. Home alone, I decide to order some takeout. When the map shows the delivery guy is zero miles away, I receive a call from him. I pick up, only to hear unsettling silence from the other end. I hang up, annoyed. The next moment, the guy texts me, "Sorry, I'm hearing-impaired and unable to speak. I called to notify you to pick up your food as soon as possible. I can't explain things over the phone, and I apologize for that." Then comes another text. "You must've been waiting for a long time. I've left your order at your door, so please pick it up as soon as you can." Just as I prepare to open the door, I see bars of live comments—reminiscent of livestream chats—floating right before my eyes. "Don't open the door! That dude isn't a delivery guy at all! He's a murderer!" "He called you to check if you're a woman living alone!" "Seriously, why are all thriller story protagonists always so dumb? The delivery guy is obviously suspicious, yet she still wants to open the door."

The day I found out I was pregnant with my second child, the impossible happened: the baby in my womb spoke. "Stupid sister, are you even listening? Mom said that as soon as you graduate, she's selling you off. That money is for my future wedding!" My daughter went still. She didn't say a word, didn't confront me, didn't even cry. She just quietly applied to study abroad. And from that day on, I never heard from her again. My husband, seeing how devastated I was, moved to comfort me. But the baby's voice cut through the silence once more. "Comfort her? You're the biggest fool in this house! When I'm born, I'm not calling you 'Dad.' My real dad is that handsome guy from the bar!" The color drained from Sean's face. Before I could utter a word of explanation, he dragged me straight to the hospital for a paternity test. The results came back quickly—my best friend had pulled some strings to expedite them. And there it was, in cold, clinical print: NO PATERNITY BIOLOGICALLY ESTABLISHED. He didn't let me speak. He filed for divorce immediately. In a panic, the baby's voice cried out from inside me again, "Why is the idiot backing out now? Did he finally figure out Mom tricked him? The one who saved his life all those years ago wasn't her—it was her best friend!" That one sentence shattered my entire world. My husband turned his back on me and married my best friend. As for me… the shock and grief hit me like a physical blow. I felt a hot, sudden gush of blood. Before the doctors could save me, I died on that cold hospital bed, my hands clutching my swollen belly, my mind still reeling, unable to comprehend how my life had unraveled so completely. It wasn't until I was reborn, and once again heard the treacherous little voice inside me, that I finally began to understand the truth.

I'm the female protagonist of a spicy novel. One day, the system tosses me into an innocuous novel to be reformed. What a joke! I turn to the male protagonist. "Hi there. Want to make out?" He has me thrown behind bars and accuses me of molesting him. Much later, he does even naughtier things than the male protagonists in spicy novels do.

In a music competition show, my rival unexpectedly played the melody I had in my mind before I could. Shocked, I confronted her, asking why she plagiarized me. However, she turned the accusation against me and said, "You said I stole your work, but do you have any proof?" However, I was unable to provide any concrete evidence. Thus, I was labeled as a bully and a plagiarist, ultimately meeting a tragic end. Even in my final moments, I couldn't figure out how she managed to steal something from my mind. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on that same stage. Seeing that my rival was about to play her part, I stopped her and said, "This time, it's my turn to go first."

I was given a second life in this werewolf world, but it came with a task. The system assigned me four Alpha males. If I could make one of them fall completely in love with me, I would be resurrected in my original human world, where I had died during heart surgery. But I failed to win over any of the four. Because they all fell for the same woman, the true heroine of this world. They attacked me with the cruelest words and bullied me mercilessly, and every single one of them wished me dead. In the end, with my mission failed, I truly died by my own hand. When they saw my body, they crumbled. Not from grief, but from the weight of their own remorse.

At the party celebrating Ryan making partner, his childhood friend, Jenna knew I was deathly allergic to peanuts, yet she deliberately put peanut syrup in my drink. I drank it, Within seconds, my throat began to tighten, constriction seizing my windpipe like a closing fist. Panic flared in my chest as a suffocating wave of heat rushed to my face. Desperate, I grabbed my emergency allergy spray from my purse. Instead, a harsh minty sting sprayed into my throat. She had swapped my medication with a mint spray. I turned pale and collapsed onto the hardwood floor, clawing at my neck, gasping for even a shred of oxygen. Jenna laughed so hard that tears welled in her eyes. "Wow, Isabella Moretti. Someone get this girl an Oscar for that performance. I’ve been a nurse at the top hospital in Chicago for five years, and I’ve never seen anyone throw a tantrum like this over a splash of syrup." I crawled toward Ryan on my hands and knees, biting my lower lip until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. "Ryan... please... call 911... I can't breathe..." Ryan looked down at me."Stop pretending, Isabella. Nobody drops dead from a little drink. Jenna is a medical professional. If you were actually in danger, she’d be the first to know." With that, he turned his back on me. I stopped begging. Using my final shred of strength, I triggered the phone's emergency SOS. A silent distress signal and my live GPS location immediately shot straight to my father.

I had a best friend who was sweet as honey but only with her mouth. Behind my back, she was a demon. She stole my boyfriend, the underboss of the Chicago Outfit. Her excuse? She wanted to keep me away from the darkness and the blood, so she'd take the suffering in my place. She pawned her wedding ring and fed her husband some story about a limited edition bag for me. She skimmed from her husband's company accounts and pinned it on my male escort habit. She was pregnant and still wanted thrills. So she went to a full-blown orgy with her husband's uncle and a group of his associates. That's how she ended up hemorrhaging. But somehow it was my fault. I was the one who organized that kind of party, according to her. And her story? She tried to stop me, so I pushed her down and made her lose the baby. In the end, her husband sent me to a cartel hellhole in Mexico to atone for my sins. There, her lover sold me to the red-light district. First came the addiction. Then the streets. I served every man in their outfit, one after another. My body rotted. I died slow, sick, and alone. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night my best friend miscarried because of her own filthy party.

After five years together, my fiancée Selene—a surgeon—canceled our wedding forty-nine times. The first time, she was in the middle of makeup when Kaelen, her male intern, messed up a patient’s chart. She rushed back to the hospital and left me waiting at the altar all day. The second time, just as we were about to exchange rings, she heard Kaelen was being bullied by another doctor. She went back to rescue him. I stayed behind, facing a roomful of smirking guests. After that, every time I tried to reschedule, that intern had some new emergency. Always needed her. Always right when the wedding was supposed to happen. I finally decided to end it. The day I left New York, she searched for me like a madwoman. But I was already gone.

Miles White, a great well-known business tycoon's life spins in a different direction the moment he encounters his OTHER woman. A sweet sin that becomes his only addiction and weakest link that will cost him almost everything he has. Nevertheless everything goes downhill when truth is brought to light and all the lies June Easton had hid in the dark versus the confrontation of his past that rises questions and suspicions about everything they thought they knew. And that's where second thoughts arise testing their bond and relationship.