Best Books Set In Australia

In politics, love is leverage. Charlie Vale is collateral damage the son of a man branded a traitor, erased by the state and left to survive in its shadows. Dexter Ashcroft is the architect of power, a strategist so ruthless they call him the Kingmaker. When their lives collide, Dexter doesn’t silence Charlie. He owns him. Bound by a contract masquerading as salvation, Charlie becomes Dexter’s public partner and private liability. Every smile is staged. Every kindness costs something. And every truth is buried deeper. But when the past resurfaces and the wrong man is sacrificed again, the crown Dexter built begins to crack. Because the one thing power cannot control is what it destroys. A story of manipulation, redemption, and a love that refuses to survive on lies.

My father's adopted daughter was only locked in the cramped storage closet for around fifteen minutes, yet he punished me by tying me up and throwing me inside. He even sealed off the ventilation with towels. "As Wendy's older sister, if you can't take care of her, then you should also experience how scared she was," he declared coldly. He knew I was claustrophobic, but my desperate pleas for mercy, my terror, were met with nothing but heartless reprimands. "Let this be a lesson on how to be a good sister." As the last sliver of light disappeared, swallowed by the oppressive darkness, I struggled helplessly. A week passed before my father finally remembered my existence and decided it was time to end my punishment. "Let's hope this week served as a good lesson for you, Jennifer. If this happens again, you will no longer be allowed in this house." He would never know that I had already taken my last breath in that suffocating room. My body had begun to rot in the darkness.

This is a diary of dark, depraved thoughts. Turn the page if you dare. *** *** She’s a secret erotic artist. Behind closed doors, she sketches the same man over and over again—filthy, dangerous, and forbidden. Then she sells the drawings to the black market to pay for her mother’s medical bills and her sister’s college tuition. It should be simple. Except the man in those drawings isn’t a stranger. He’s Dominic—her father’s best friend. Every sinful stroke of her brush chips away at her innocence and poisons her love life. Every relationship she tries to build ends the same way—ruined by a man who doesn’t even know she’s obsessed with him. Until the night everything goes wrong. She wants to stop, wants a fairytale love life, but she owes her anonymous collectors one more portrait. Determined to make one final drawing of her darkest fantasy, she locks herself in her studio… only for Dominic to walk in and see the explicit portraits displayed across her walls. Her secret should destroy her. Instead, Dominic makes her a far more dangerous deal. For 365 days, she’ll work for him as his obedient secretary—and in return, he’ll keep her scandalous secret buried. But the closer she gets to the man she’s spent years drawing in the dark, the harder it becomes to remember one thing: Some fantasies should never come to life.

Julian Vane is the "Ice King" of Wall Street—a man of cold logic and zero scandals. Maya Rossi is a struggling creative who can barely pay her rent. When Maya accidentally live-streams Julian in a moment of utter, dorky vulnerability, his stock prices plummet along with his reputation. To save his empire, Julian’s PR team crafts a lie: Maya isn't a trespasser; she’s his secret fiancée. Now, Maya is traded from her cramped apartment to a glass penthouse, forced to play the doting lover to a man who treats romance like a hostile takeover. But as the cameras roll and the "likes" pour in, the lines between their contract and their chemistry begin to blur.

Ava Monroe thinks she’s living every girl’s dream. Her best friend, Mia, introduces her to Ethan Blake—a gorgeous, smart, slightly mysterious senior who’s only at their school to finish his final exams. Their connection is instant, electric. For six months, Ava falls harder than she ever knew possible. Ethan is everything: attentive, passionate, and hers. But when summer arrives and Ethan prepares to leave for university, everything shifts. The texts slow to a trickle. The calls stop. He grows cold, distant, and finally asks for a “break”—to focus on school, to not distract her. Ava is shattered but tries to move on. Then the new school year begins. Mia returns from holiday with a confession that rips Ava’s world apart: Ethan didn’t leave because of university. He left because he’d started falling for Mia. And Mia—Ava’s best friend—let it happen. Now Ava must navigate the wreckage of two betrayals, reclaim her sense of self, and decide if some wounds ever truly heal.

'Until when will you keep avoiding bumping into me, mate?'Best-friend with the rich girl at school form kindergarten, Calliope finds herself drawn to the forbidden fruit of their friendship, an exotic secret threatening to change the course of the middle class girl's life!A darker twist looms as he publicly rejects and humiliate her, shattered , she disappears into thin air only to reappear four years later, hotter, richer and smarter, and only one goal in mind. 'How about you taste what pains feel like, mate?'

That night I found out my Beta husband banged my bestie, who is 10 years younger than him, I also slept with someone 10 years younger than me in a bar. When they decided to kick me out of the pack, my ONS showed up unexpectedly and stopped them. He turned out to be my bestie's brother Chris, the supposed Alpha heir of the pack. I thought what between us was just an embarrassing one night thing, but he wouldn‘t let me go again, and claimed that he had a crush on me since years ago…

19-year-old Ethan moves in with his best friend for the summer, only to fall for the one woman he should never want: his best friend’s mom. She’s beautiful, mysterious, and completely off-limits. But the more he tries to stay away, the closer she pulls him in. One look was all it took. Now, there’s no turning back.

My CEO wife insists on taking a young, fresh intern under her wing. She wants to train him personally. She says to me, "Don't overthink this. I just value his potential." She's always been stern and stoic, but she starts dressing in pink and pulling her hair back in high ponytails. On our third wedding anniversary, she and the intern even willfully disappear for 48 hours. When others are searching for her like mad, she shares photos of her riding a carousel and holding cotton candy. She captions them, "I found the purest of joys in the most joyful of places—all because of you!" Our company loses a huge project because of this, and I lose my wife. I slip a divorce agreement between the pages of the intern's application to become a permanent staff member. My wife signs it without even looking and says, "Knowing what Elliot can do, he's more than capable of carrying out the role of a vice president." I calmly hand her my resignation. "You're right. That's why I'll make way for him."

Bertha Cobb's first love, Owen Rountree, made a mistake during his experiment, leading to an explosion occurring in the lab. Eight students died in this explosion as a result. However, Bertha insisted that I take on the responsibility of this accident and admit that the explosion occurred because of the error found in my data. "You're a professor here. Nothing will happen to you if you're the one taking on the responsibility. But Oewn, on the other hand, will get admonished by the victims' families." I got dismissed by the university afterward. In the end, the victims' families burned me to death. My daughter, Leah Callahan, got bullied as well. She was forced to drop out of school later on and died from depression. While Leah breathed her last on her bed, Bertha was in the middle of celebrating Owen's promotion as a professor. When I opened my eyes again, I realized that I was five minutes away from the explosion in the science lab.