Books Like Twisted Games

On the night of my 30th birthday, I waited until the early hours of the morning, but my husband, Theodore Hawk never showed up. Instead, I came across an Instagram post from his childhood sweetheart, Emily Gallagher. [What romantic is not the starry night, it is having you by my side.] In the picture, she was wearing a delicate, sky-blue camisole that revealed just enough to charm and seduce. A man stood close behind her, his hand firmly gripping her waist. The scene was set in the seaside villa that Theodore had gifted her, their figures intimately entwined under the soft glow of the night. Someone had commented beneath the post: [I can’t stand you two being this lovey-dovey all the time! Just get married already!] Emily had responded with a shy-face emoji. I had just liked the post when Theodore, who I had failed to reach all night, blew up my phone with calls. "Are you out of your mind, Camilla? Emi and I grew up together! If we wanted to be together, we would’ve done so long ago! Why are you being so petty?" Looking at how Theodore gently held her in his arms, comforting her, I realized something. Letting go of someone you’ve loved for seven years... can take only a moment.

On our fourth wedding anniversary, I waited at home in vain. Ethan set off fireworks across the entire city for his first love. I was burned by the sparks and ended up in the hospital. Seeing my blackened wounds, he shielded his first love from the doorway and said coldly, "Don't look. It's disgusting." After returning home, I found lace lingerie in the washing machine on the balcony. I calmly took it out, folded it, and placed it on the living room table. Closing the lid, I booked a flight to London.

"I'll accept the hospital's offer. I leave for Italvia in two weeks." Vanessa Jahn stood by the window, pregnancy report in hand. On the other end of the call, Rob Lambert, the hospital director, sounded thrown. "Wait—what? After all this time? I've been trying to get you on board for years." She let out a humorless laugh. "Guess it finally felt like time for a change. Anyway, I've got a lot to wrap up before I go. We'll catch up later." She hung up. The ache in her heart lingered as she glanced back down at the report.

Vivian Kane is a ghost in the digital underworld, slipping into Alessandro Costello’s world like she’s always been there. She lifts his wallet with a swipe of her fingers, and just like that, she’s not only hacked his systems—she’s hacked his life. Alessandro Costello doesn’t do forgiveness. She’s made it personal, and now he’s out for blood. He’s ready to turn her life into a living nightmare, using every dirty trick he knows to make her regret ever crossing him. What starts as a simple theft quickly spirals into something far darker. They’re trapped in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, where every touch and taunt turns up the heat until it’s a steamy, no-holds-barred battle of lust and dirty games. In this twisted mind-fuck, trust is a luxury neither can afford.

"Tell me, Mr Blue. Was it worth it? Is it worth it? Will it be worth it?" It wasn't and it never will be. Not in Erin's eyes tinted blue. Not in the eyes of the hopeless young man doomed to the clutches of fate; doomed to eternal pain. Did beauty lie between the cracks of fate? Does the Moon know of the Sun who died every night to let the Moon breathe? Erin, a poor, hospital bound boy just wants to be like everyone else, to love someone. Every day, he escapes to the virtual world with his wings of freedom, creating his own reality where things goes the way he wants. That world gave him a real, painless body, with infinite possibilities. Life got that much harder when, Uriel, a rich boy enters this realm and steals Erin’s world. The man who says the ugliest of words with the smoothest of tones. Does he help Erin, or dig him deeper? OR Erin wanted love and got pain instead. Things changed, and so did Uriel. INCLUDES: futuristic virtual reality, Persian mythology (minor), romance, sci-fi, slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers, rich/poor dynamic, mythology, distance, cold families, battles, quests, stars and moon metaphor. WARNING: includes mentions of depression, swearing, and sexually explicit content.

My boyfriend has depression. To help cure him, I pass on the opportunity for a recital abroad. Instead, I accept commercial gigs so I can rake in the cash. After one performance, I see my boyfriend holding hands with a woman who looks like me in a private room. He wears a sharp suit and smiles so brightly that he doesn't even look ill. The people around him cheer and tease him. "You really are different with your true love back in the country. When are you two going to make things official?" "I heard you'd been dating another woman for seven years, though. Do you love her?" Charles Foster smiles indifferently. "I was just having some fun with her. Only an idiot like her would take me seriously." I sob with devastation while hiding behind a door. Suddenly, I feel like a fool for spending seven years with him. I call my mentor, who suggested that I take part in the international piano competition. "I will take part in the competition."

"I have never done this," I muttered, hypnotized by his eyes. "Nobody knows everything." He answered and gave me his hand. "You are so... so... So... beautiful." He was whispering his secret and I had his chiselled jaw wrapped in a small stubble beard in my hands. "You don't have to know anything. Follow me." He pulled me into his arms, he mumbled, I leaned over and kissed him. I cupped his cheeks and pulled him to kiss my lips. I want to savour those lips. He obeyed. He stormed into my life on a rainy day, one day just to shelter me. He was always uninvited into my life but once I tasted him, I realised I am more than I can be. He became My Taste I Like until I learnt his truth.

"A tortured love story tangled in betrayal, generational secrets, and the haunting pull of the past. Yvette, a woman marked by tragedy, finds herself drawn to Tristan—a man with shadows of his own. When an invisible network begins targeting her gifted younger sister, Yvette is forced into a war she never asked for. With each buried truth revealed, love becomes as dangerous as the silence trying to consume them all."

Nina Whyte finds herself trapped in a marriage that is going very differently from how she imagined. Being married to the gentle, handsome and wealthy Cody Whyte, she expects their marriage to be like a fairytale but reality dawns on her when she finds herself cuffed with a serial cheat. This leads her to make drastic decisions that lands her in a middle of a crime scene being targeted as the main suspect. It is in the toughest moments in her life that she learns that, sometimes letting go makes room for something new and that sometimes love finds you at your lowest and lifts you up to places you can’t imagine.

An undercover agent, Dinah didn't expect her excitement for coming back to her country after so many years to be turned into dread and grief, but what else could she feel when she found her parents lying in a pool of their blood in their very own house, she was simply devastated? She would mourn them for the rest of her life, but she knew she would much rather avenge them. A perfect opportunity is served to her on a platter when she is sent on a mission by her superiors to investigate the fierce Jared and his gang, the very same people who murdered her parents. Of course there will be bloodshed, betrayal, lies and outbursts of courage, but what is Love looking for in a situation like that? Read Dinah to find out more!