February First Reads Novels & Stories

When I had only three months left to live after taking the cursed blade meant for my husband Lucian, his first love Lily returned. When I endured the pain and prepared a dinner to commemorate our anniversary, he did not come back, he was having a steamy car session with Lily. When I went to the hospital alone to buy medicine, he was accompanying Lili for her pregnancy check-up. I pretended not to have noticed, I just silently played the role of a perfect wife, and wrote him four letters as a gift for our anniversary. After I die, he saw the gifts I left behind and went completely insane.

After Edwin’s first love arrived, I left his home without telling anyone. The first week after I left, he didn't care at all. He spent the week doting on her first love, taking her to social gatherings, making people gossip about me being left. The second week after I left, his friends began placing bets on whether I would come back crawling or scheme against Rose and cry for attention. Edwin heard them making jokes about me, and he actually laughed, keeping Rose on his lap. The third week after I left, he tracked me down and barged into my door. “Stop all this drama, Victoria.” He spat, “Rose’s heart is delicate. Your heart is the right match for her. Donate your heart to her, and I’ll marry you.” But what he expected from me, a long confrontation or an ocean of tears, he didn't get at all. “Okay,” I replied, my voice as calm as the ocean. “When is the surgery’s date?” Edwin froze at his place. What he didn't know was that I was not the Victoria he remembered. I had been transported into his world after an accident, and only by fulfilling his hundred wishes could I finally return to my own. And, this was his hundredth wish!

For five years, I have seen Leo Belmonte—the Don’s heir—as the only light in my life. On the day of my wedding dress fitting, he smiled and told me I was only a stand-in for his untouchable first love, Mia. Now that the real thing was back, I was supposed to step aside—go underground, follow my mother's path, and be somebody's mistress like she had been. The bridal fastenings cut my palms bloody, and all he cared about was the dress. His precious Mia ran me down on the highway in her car, and he warned me not to call the police—held my mother's ashes over my head to keep me in line. When the whole internet was calling me a homewrecker, it was him who nailed me to the pillar of shame with his own hands. The night I finally gave up, I boarded the Deluca family's private helicopter. That was when they learned the truth—I was no homeless bastard daughter. I was the only heir the most powerful Don in Europe had been searching for all these years. Once, I saw him as my light. Now he kneels at my feet and begs forgiveness, and all I feel is disgust. One day soon, I would stand at the top of the underworld—somewhere he could never reach again.

The emergency center I worked in went haywire as the typhoon closed in on our town. That night, my husband’s first love made seven emergency calls in a row to me. However, she did not say anything when I picked up. By the eighth call, I thought it was a prank caller, so I gave them a piece of my mind. Then, I heard my husband’s angry voice. “Melinda! This is the eighth time Sadie's called you for help! Haven’t you made her suffer enough?!” After that fiasco, he decided to avenge Sadie by taping my mouth, tying my wrists and legs up, and throwing me into our basement for three whole days, despite it being flooded with seawater, I begged for mercy, but it was to no avail. “You knew Sadie couldn’t talk because she hurt her throat, yet you still hung up on her! I'm going to make sure you feel the same hopelessness she felt!" Those three days left me with a collection of severe infections. I ended up having to remove my kidney. Even after all that, that man still had the gall to kneel by my bed and beg me to give him another chance.

My husband, Mark Thompson, and I went hiking. After eating some wild berries I picked, he was poisoned and died. When I got home, a woman named Sarah Miller and her son, Tommy Miller, showed up at my door. It turned out Mark had given them our house and car. On top of that, he owed them a huge amount of money. I ended up giving them all the savings I had. To care for my sick mother-in-law, Judith Thompson, I worked three jobs. I was surviving on basic meals like bread and butter. After years of exhausting work, I collapsed in the hospital. Judith told the doctors to stop my treatment. Just as I was about to die, Mark walked into the ward with Sarah and Tommy in his arms. He tossed five dollars at me. “Thanks for taking care of my mom all these years.” That was when I realized Mark had faked his death just to be with Sarah and their love child. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day we went hiking together.

At 16 years old, I travel with my sister, Sarah Barnes, to the remote mountains of Nectar Valley to participate in a program. While herding cattle in the mountains, I fall asleep. In my drowsy state, I hear strange panting and gasps. Thick fog has somehow risen throughout the forest by the time I wake up. Suddenly, Sarah's anxious voice calls out from within the fog. I'm about to respond when someone suddenly covers my mouth with their hand. A voice whispers in my ear, "Don't answer. That's not your sister. It's the Temptress!"

Could anything be more worse than a betrayal from the ones you loved and trust the most? "You better not be an ingrate or you sure will regret it for the rest of your life, that you know pretty well.. Understood?" "Yes sir!" I managed to answer back as rivers of tears were already rushing down from my eyes. I rubbed the tears off my face with the back of my palm as I walked to the exit of the office. Join Diana Roberts on a heart-wrenching odyssey through betrayal, survival, and the quest for identity. When her mother's tragic death thrusts her into a vicious family power struggle, Diana is cast into the unforgiving streets. Yet, in the shadows of despair, she encounters unlikely allies, including the compassionate Jake Stewart. As she battles demons from her past, a sinister conspiracy unfolds, revealing a tangled web of deception, crime, and a shocking family secret. Can Diana break free from the chains of her lineage, or will she succumb to the darkness that threatens to consume her newfound life? Uncover the gripping saga of one girl's resilience against a world determined to break her.

A young widow is given one more chance at life when her life is reversed back in time using a time travel machine that had been her late husband's father's life's work, way before she was forced into an arranged marriage. But what does the new trip in time hold for her, especially when she meets her then husband in a new setting, and sees him in a different light, bearing in mind that he is already dead? And how fast is a whirlwind romance when she has to go back to her place in time to an empty bed? "You don't...look like someone who has a long time to live." I said to him, watching as his gaze became a little sad. "I guess when you live right, you don't need to."

My name is Valerie Sanchez. My husband's childhood sweetheart is pregnant, just like I am. To shield her reputation, he claims the child she's carrying is his. As for mine, he accuses me of cheating, saying it's the result of my sleeping with other men. Devastated, I confront him, but his response is as cold and unfeeling as ever. "Evelyn's family has always been strict with her. She can't bear hearing the rumors and gossip." Gazing at the man I had given my heart to for so long, I make an unspoken resolution—I will never love him again.

Lin Wen Xin is a beautiful woman, born with elegant and distinctive features. There are countless men chasing after her love, but she has never accepted any one of them. She will always remember the promise that her first love made to her in high school, “Wait for me, you will be the only girl that I will marry!” Six years later, she was forced to marry the cold and ruthless billionaire president of DT Holdings, Wang Shen Ze. “Since she wants to play with me, I will play with her till the end. I will make sure that she will heavily regret her decision to marry me for the rest of her life!”