Best Sci Fi Book 2022 Novels & Stories

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.

Katherine Heart has been in love with Damon Rhodes for three years, which would not be a problem if Damon was not her ridiculously handsome best friend who keeps acting like her boyfriend without ever actually calling her his girlfriend. One minute he is kissing her breathless, telling her she is the only girl who truly understands him, and the next minute he is dodging every conversation about commitment with that stupid charming smile of his that should honestly be illegal. But when Damon drags Katherine to a luxury ring shop, she is convinced this is finally it. Until she realises it's not her. Humiliated, heartbroken, and determined to never let Damon see her cry again, Katherine throws herself into her internship at Rhodes Enterprises, where long hours and impossible workloads are easier to survive than watching the man she loves fall for someone else. There is only one problem. Nathaniel Rhodes, Damon’s older brother. Cold, terrifyingly powerful, and completely off-limits, Nathaniel is the kind of man who can silence an entire boardroom with one glance alone, yet for some reason, his icy eyes keep following Katherine everywhere she goes. And when one late night at the office leads Katherine to discover a side of Nathaniel nobody has ever seen before, his cock in his hands as he helplessly moans her name, her messy heartbreak suddenly turns into something far more dangerous. Now trapped between the boy who broke her heart and the man who could completely ruin her, Katherine is about to learn that love triangles are a lot messier when billionaires, jealousy, office scandals, and unresolved tension are involved. Because falling for one Rhode's brother was already a disaster. Falling for both of them? Absolutely catastrophic.

Two years after the accident, my husband Derek can no longer touch me. His love hasn't changed. But his body has. He says he wants me happy. He just never said happy with someone else. Then his two best friends move in to help. Luca is all sharp suits and sharper smirks. He looks at me like I am already his. Eli is quiet, intense, his touch lingering a heartbeat too long. I swore to honor my vows. But Derek keeps pushing us together. A dinner meant for two becomes four. A goodnight kiss on my forehead from him. Last night, Luca caught me alone in the kitchen. His hand on my waist. His whisper against my ear. He asked if I was shaking from fear or want. I did not push him away. Now my husband has proposed the unthinkable. He wants me to share myself with them. He wants to watch. Three men under one roof. One forbidden wife. And I am terrified of how much I want to say yes. Shared by My Husband's Best Friends is a steamy first-person forbidden romance with a why choose ending. No cheating. My husband asked for it.

Mira has been Luna of the Moon fall Pack for three years. She gave Declan everything, her loyalty, her body (what little he took), and her dignity. But Declan never wanted her. Not really. When Mira catches her Alpha husband with another man - his personal guard, Dorian - the truth finally shatters her. Alpha Declan is gay and their marriage was nothing but a cover. And the worst part? He has not touched her in three years and she had waited and blamed herself all along, thinking she was wrong. Broken but not defeated, Mira walked away silently and Declan never knows she saw. She ended up at a club that night and made one fatal mistake. Mira ends up in bed with a stranger - a handsome, dominant stranger who makes her feel wanted for the first time in years. Then they made an agreement not to meet again, didn’t exchange names and avoided any strings. But fate is cruel, because the stranger is Ronan - The Alpha of Stormcrest Pack and Declan’s best friend. Now Mira is trapped in a web of secrets. She knows Declan is gay. She slept with his best friend. And Ronan had no idea she is Declan’s mate. But Mira must decide….stay silent and survive, or burn it all down and claim what she deserves - including the man who was never supposed to be hers. And Declan? He will regret the day he used her as his cover.

"No Chris… you can't fucking kiss me with the same lips that tasted Anna's. You can't… just leave Chris, please leave…” She screamed, her body shaking terribly. For Anna coming home meant summer nights by the lake, her mother's cooking, and slipping back into the life she left behind. Most of all, it meant Carly, her best friend, her constant, her home. And Chris, Carly's boyfriend. Who was clearly off limits or at least... he should have been. Because the moment Anna steps back into Millbrook, something feels wrong. The town is quieter. The air feels heavier. And Chris? He isn't the same boy she remembers. He's colder, stronger and dangerous in a way that makes her heart race and her instincts scream. Then come the dreams. Running through moonlit fields. A voice calling her name. A presence she can't escape... or resist and when the truth finally surfaces, it shatters everything Anna thought she knew. Chris isn't just her best friend's boyfriend. He's an Alpha and impossibly she was his mate. Torn between loyalty and a bond she can't break, Anna must decide, walk away and protect the only family she's ever known or surrender to the Alpha who was never meant to be hers. Because in a town full of secrets, some fates are more dangerous than others... and loving him might cost her everything.

After I got a second shot at life, the very first thing I did was enroll in an intensive weight-loss boot camp. In my past life, my boyfriend was always on my case about my weight. He flat-out told me he wouldn't put a ring on it unless I got down to a hundred pounds. I tried every diet and workout plan out there—I pushed myself to the edge—but instead of losing, I packed on even more pounds. Meanwhile, my so-called best friend ate cheeseburgers, fries, and pizza like it was her job and still dropped from 130 pounds to a hundred in less than a month. The second she hit that magic number, my boyfriend's head turned. They started sneaking around behind my back. When I finally confronted them, they shoved me off a rooftop. It wasn't until after I died that I discovered the truth: my "best friend" had linked herself to a weight-transfer system. Every single pound I struggled to lose went straight to her. And every ounce of fat she should have gained? It landed right back on me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the exact day my boyfriend gave me his hundred-pound ultimatum. With every memory of my past life intact, I couldn't help but smile. My best friend wants to be skinny, does she? Well then, let's see how she likes being nothing but skin and bones. Let's see if forty-five pounds is skinny enough for her.

Dylanne Hayes has always had a huge crush on her best friend's brother, Kai. He's every woman's dream, and hers since she was 18. Now Kai is back in the States. He's different, more charming, and she swears she's over him, even after she's required to work with him at work. Work is supposed to be easy, but not with Kai Reed in the picture. Can she resist him this time or betray the promise she made to her bestie?

TW: ABUSE, VIOLENCE, DARK ROMANCE, DADDY KINK. THERE WILL BE MM, MF, and MFMM sex At 22 years old, Alyssa Bennett returns to her small hometown, fleeing her abusive husband with their seven-month-old daughter, Zuri. Unable to contact her brother, she reluctantly turns to his asshole best friends for help-despite their history of tormenting her. King, the enforcer of her brother's motorcycle gang, the Crimson Reapers, is intent on breaking her. Nikolai aims to claim her for himself, and Mason, ever the follower, is just glad to be part of the action. As Alyssa navigates the dangerous dynamics of her brother's friends, she must find a way to protect herself and Zuri, all while discovering dark secrets that could change everything.

My Forbidden Husband I kissed my father’s best friend. It was reckless. Disastrous. And worst of all—he hated it. Damien Luca is eighteen years older, untouchable, and every kind of wrong for me. A man carved from power, wealth, and sin—the kind of man who owns half the world and intimidates the rest of it. I told myself I’d let him go. That the crush, the obsession, the pull between us was over. But fate laughs at me—because now, I’m his wife. A marriage neither of us wanted. A vow neither of us can escape. And a fire we’re both trying—and failing—to resist. He’s forbidden. I’m off-limits. But we can’t stop reaching for the one thing we’re not supposed to touch.

All her life Io she has dreamed of going to the Chinese celebration of Hanami so that she might make friends. She’s ends up finding so much more in a young man named Draco who is the son of the General who runs the town. She is a naïve and gullible young woman who believed that she would never be deceived by someone of such an extinguished background. Draco knowing that he is promised to another courts Io while he fights for his right to choose his own bride. However, through the trickery and conniving wit of his mother who he thought was on his side, he sees everything he worked so hard for fall apart. When Io learns of his betrayal she takes the cue and runs from his truths revealed. When Draco runs off to be with the woman he loves against his families obligations. In a night of peace he and Io reunite only for him to wake up to her fury the next day. Io causes Draco harm by accident. In the weeks to come after they are permanently separated she learns of the child who grows in her womb and goes to tell Draco’s family of the news. His magical mother responds by cursing Io who hurt her child for one thousand years to become the monster that she sees her as. She will not live the life she wants. She will never know love. She will never hold her child. She will die when his mother grants it to be so and at the death of Io all those effected by her anger, will reveal the journeys that were caused by her anger. The reveal of all those effected will change the very world she will no longer get to live in.