Best Historical Mystery Novels & Stories

I’ve loved my best friend’s father for years. Damian Cole is untouchable. A cold, powerful tech billionaire who built an empire from nothing. He’s disciplined. Controlled. Off-limits. And completely unaware that every time he looks at me, my heart forgets how to beat. Until the night he catches me sneaking out with another man. The way he looks at me changes. The way he touches me changes. The rules change. What starts as one reckless kiss turns into a secret we can’t control. A love we shouldn’t want. A betrayal that could destroy the one person we both care about most — his daughter, my best friend. And when I discover I’m pregnant… I realize loving him won’t just ruin a friendship. It might ruin everything. But Damian Cole doesn’t lose what belongs to him. And this time… he’s choosing me.

Three years ago, Alicia Brown walked away from the only man who had ever made her feel undone. After a reckless one-night stand with a powerful stranger, she slipped out of his hotel suite, convinced that disappearing was the only way to protect her heart. No names or contact information were exchanged—only a connection so consuming it frightened her. She never imagined fate would bring her back to him. Until she steps into her best friend’s home for the holidays… and comes face-to-face with Rhys Connell. Her best friend’s father. The same man who gave her the most unforgettable night of her life. Wealthy. Controlled. Devastatingly composed. Rhys is a widowed billionaire with a reputation for discipline and emotional restraint, a man who would do anything to protect his daughter. The moment their eyes meet, the past ignites. He remembers the girl who trembled beneath his touch, the girl who vanished without a trace. And the only woman who has haunted him for three years. Now she is under his roof, laughing beside his daughter, and staying in the same house with him. Wanting her once was a secret. Wanting her now is betrayal. But Rhys has never been a man who forgets what belongs to him. And Alicia is about to learn that walking away from him once does not mean she was ever truly free.

Avery Nash had two lives and one rule. Keep them completely separate. By day she was the captain of the Crestwood University cheer squad and a Business Management student holding onto her scholarship by her fingernails. By night she was Scarlett, masked and wigged and untouchable, dancing at Velvet Underground to cover the gap between what her scholarship paid and what her mother's deadbeat boyfriend kept taking from them. On the night her boyfriend cheated on her with her biggest rival, Avery made one reckless decision. She followed a brooding stranger back to his motel room and gave him the one thing she had been saving. Her virginity. "Take off the mask. I want to see you." He had said. "A little mystery never hurt anyone, did it?" she replied. She slipped out before dawn, telling herself she would never see him again. Then she rang her best friend, Jade's doorbell and he answered the door. Liam Harrington was Jade's new stepbrother, who she hated, the transfer quarterback every girl on campus was already talking about, and the boy sitting three seats away from her in every Business Management lecture. He was also the only person in the world who knew what Avery felt like without her armour on. He just did not know her real face. Now Avery was living three lives at once. The captain, the stripper, and the girl quietly falling for the one man she was absolutely forbidden to want. And the secret that started as one reckless birthday night was growing into something big enough to burn everything she had built.

As an entrepreneur, Ashley West has spent most of her time focusing on business, but she decided to take a break from work and go on a vacation to explore and have fun. What happens when she had a one night stand with a stranger who turned out to be her father's best friend and business partner.  Caught between loyalty to her father and a desire she can no longer deny, Ashley faces a dangerous game of forbidden attraction. As emotions flare and boundaries blur, she must decide. Will she follow her heart and risk losing her father's trust or give up on her feelings for peace to reign?

I had fallen in love with my father’s friend—the man I was supposed to call “uncle,” Kael Viremont. For a while, I thought he loved me too. We even had this silly little promise—that if I turned twenty-seven and still want to be with him, then we could be together, publicly. Five days before my twenty-seventh birthday, I overheard him saying he’d never liked me. That he was going to marry his childhood sweetheart. And as if that wasn’t cruel enough, he was planning to use the wedding to cut me off for good. So I did the one thing I should’ve done a long time ago—accepted that he and I would never belong to the same world… and disappeared from his life for good.

She was supposed to heal him, not crave him. Olivia Carter, a divorced physical therapist, thought her new job with the Chicago Blizzard hockey team would be simple—treat injuries, keep her head down, and cheer for her son on the ice. But when the team’s arrogant and devastatingly handsome captain, Xander Hayes, lands in her care, everything spirals out of control. He’s engaged. He’s her son’s best friend. And he’s forbidden. What begins as teasing flirtation turns into stolen touches, midnight encounters, and a dangerous obsession neither of them can resist. But secrets never stay buried—especially in the world of fame, fortune, and ruthless tabloids. When their affair explodes into the public eye, Olivia risks not only her career and reputation, but the one bond she can’t afford to lose: her son’s trust. Will Xander choose his fiancée, his career, and his best friend… or the woman he should never want?

My husband planned to sell my body to a stranger so that he could have a perfect reason to divorce me. When I heard his phone conversation, I didn’t wait for him to catch me, I hit the loudest club in town at once. Then something I didn’t expect happened. I slept with his forbidden best friend, a man who hated my guts like crazy yet he claimed me like I was his soulmate. His jaws tightened as he whispered “He didn’t deserve you. You were supposed to be mine.”

Riley thought her life was better the way it has been; a man to run to, a best friend whose shoulder she could cry on all the time. But everything came crashing when she found her best friend and her boyfriend on the bed, where she found out that her boyfriend had used her to get to Zelia, her best friend. Her world came crashing as they were the only ones that she had to call family.It wasn't intentional when she slept with her best friend's father that night; it was just a way she had considered to take things off her head. But what happens when Riley ends up pregnant, unsure of whom the father of her kids is.

Mistakes? I’ve made plenty. The biggest one? Falling head over heels for Brian Lockwood—my brother’s best friend and the captain of the school’s basketball team. For years, I lived in the shadow of my one wish: for him to see me as more than just Simon’s little sister. But how could he, with Lyla, his perfect girlfriend, glued to his side? Then everything changed. Lyla cheated, Brian’s heart shattered, and he was desperate for a distraction. That’s when he came to me with a deal—a no-strings-attached arrangement where we could give each other exactly what we wanted. I saw my chance. I thought I could make him fall in love with me. But I didn’t account for how messy things could get—how keeping it all a secret from Simon would twist everything. And when Brian crossed a line I couldn’t forgive, I knew it was time to let go of my high school crush. Fast forward three years. I’m over him. Or so I tell myself. Except now Brian’s back, no longer the heartbroken boy I knew but a leading basketball star with one goal: to win me over. I swore I wouldn’t fall for him again.

I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to graduate top of my class, get into the best law firm, and make my brother proud. What I’m not here for? Sharing an apartment with Cade freaking West. My brother’s best friend. Tattooed, cocky, insufferable. A walking red flag on skates with a motorcycle named Roxie and a different girl in his bed every night. We don’t get along. We never have—especially not after what happened. He hates me for it. I don’t regret it. I was right. But the longer we’re forced to live under the same roof, the harder it gets to ignore the heat. The tension. The way he looks at me like he’s two seconds from ruining my entire life.