Best Novel All Time Novels & Stories

My husband, Alex Carter, is a top AI engineer. He one day gets drugged by a new intern at his company, and one night of chaos follows. He calls me the next morning, his voice hoarse from a hangover and filled with unfamiliar panic. "Em, I messed up. But don't worry. I gave her enough money to disappear from this city." After ten years together, I believe it is just a momentary lapse in judgment. Six months later, Alex's company suffers the worst cyber attack in its history, with core data hanging by a thread. I rush back from a fragrance exhibition in Astral, only to witness a scene at the data center entrance that sends me into shock. Alex stands outside the tightly sealed door, his face showing a weariness and guilt I have never seen before. The doctor says that the intern, Brooke Anderson, is three months pregnant and has spent 72 hours with him in the high-radiation server room. Now, she shows signs of miscarriage. Later, Brooke gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The entire Carter family is ecstatic. I remove the wedding ring that has accompanied me for ten years, my fingertips turning ice cold. I dial the number saved with only one letter "S" and say, "Mr. Sullivan, I accept the collaboration you proposed last time." A low, soft laugh comes from the other end of the line. "Ms. Emma Shaw, that's a wise decision."

David Kennedy, an art student and part time tattoo artist, meets the shy and beautiful Tina Spencer at a party at the college he attends, after she asks him for a tattoo. He is immediately enthralled by her. Something doesn’t feel right though, especially when he sees the nasty bruises covering her arms. Then Tina goes missing. The years go by, and he still thinks about her. Then one day, fate intervenes, and he finds himself face to face with the beautiful woman he tattooed all those years ago. But she has some devastating secrets. Where has she been this whole time? Will David ever get the chance to heal her? Will they get the happily ever after she needs?

On the third anniversary, which also happens to be Natalie Sherman's birthday, her husband, Lester Garrison, gives her a very special gift—a divorce agreement. Calmly, Lester picks up a pen and drops his signature on the bottom left corner of the agreement. Then, he pushes the document in Natalie's direction. "Rene is very stubborn, and it's very difficult for me to appease her. Only when I'm divorced will she agree to accept me as her lover. "I've already signed the divorce agreement. You should do the same. Don't worry, we're just faking this divorce." Lester's tone is very casual, not to mention he sounds emotionless, too. It's as though he's discussing what to have for dinner tonight.

While we were eating, Tristan Shaw suddenly set down his fork and looked at me. “Who is Fatcat Cook?” The fork in my hand froze midair. My heart skipped a beat. Fatcat Cook. That name was someone Lena Moore and I made up on a drunken night. We had agreed that if anything ever went wrong and we couldn’t reach each other, we would use “Fatcat Cook” as a code. No one else knew that name existed. Only the two of us. And Lena had been missing for a full month. She said she was going to Valoria for a trip. Then she never came back. I looked at Tristan’s calm, almost indifferent face, and felt my heart sink. How did he know that name?

There was only one week left until my marking ceremony with Alpha Mason Wright. And this time, he was asking to postpone it yet again, all because his puphood sweetheart, Eira Padmore, the she-wolf who once saved his life, had another episode. She was in tears, begging to go to Bhador to see the snow, just like every time before, claiming she wouldn't be able to breathe otherwise. The ceremony had already been pushed back three times. All the wolves of the north had been waiting for us to complete it. But I was done waiting, and so was the pup growing inside me. If Mason refused to mark me, then I'd walk away and build my own future. But what I couldn't understand was... Why was it that the moment I left, Mason went mad searching for me, and suddenly insisted on marking me after all?

Everyone she loves could be gone in a minute, and she dreaded it, that's why she'd concealed it. Nobody realized that she was the offspring of the Mark. Yet, Catherine was beyond wretched, how they played her, how she was a pawn. It crushed her faith, lies were told.

Think of this as a cyberpunk Bridget Jones’ Diary, if Bridget were a self-destructive tech refugee with a cocaine habit and a holographic archangel for a conscience. This is adarkly comedic character studyset in a near-future that feels just a few software updates away. It’s a story about addiction, both chemical and digital, and the messy, painful, and sometimes hilarious struggle to reclaim your own messy life from the algorithms designed to “optimize” it. At its heart, it’s the story of the most dysfunctional friendship imaginable: between a woman who is her own worst enemy, and the godlike AI she reprogrammed to be her partner-in-crime. It’s raw, it’s visceral, and it explores whether real connection can be found once you’ve burned all your bridges, and broken your operating system.

My stepson pushes me down from the second floor, all because I accidentally break a bowl. He stands over me, looking down with a cold, emotionless gaze. "You're just a stand-in my grandfather forced on us. Don't even think about replacing my mother!" I stare up at the boy I've raised for eight years, and his indifference cuts deeper than any wound. Blood slowly trickles down from my forehead. Fighting through the pain, I dial a number. "Whatever debt I owed has been paid. It's time for me to leave." Coincidentally, I already have the divorce agreement that his father has signed.

On Children's Day, the most popular social media post is about me. The caption is: "Mr. Shane Norton spends his birthday with his son David Norton and his first love, Ruth Feynman. Has he finally decided to divorce Ayla Sanderson?" I quietly press the "like" button. When my phone rings, I'm in the midst of taking down the balloons I put up for our wedding anniversary. "Honey." My husband sounds anxious as he tries to explain himself. "David suddenly insisted that we go to a theme park, so I—" In the background, I hear David laughing. "Dad, Ruthie says that I can sleep with her tonight!" I look at the mess in the house. The balloons are drooping, and the cream on the cake is congealed. "You don't have to explain," I hear myself say. "I understand." It's just that this time, I don't want you or David any longer, Shane.

After eight years together, I've proposed to my boyfriend 108 times. Each time, he found a different excuse to turn me down. On the 109th try, I give up a promotion and transfer opportunity. Finally, he said yes. I think he's moved by my sincerity. But instead, he brings his first love into our marital home and falls into our bed with her. "I only proposed to her to spite you. If you just say the word, I'll dump her at the altar and marry you instead!" Staring at the scene before me, I take the tight engagement ring off my finger and toss it down the drain. I decide to call off the wedding before he can. But after I walk away, the man who swore he'd marry someone else went crazy searching for me everywhere.