Last Fall Novels & Stories

I've been married to Ryland Webster for eight years. In that time, we got divorced nine times. I met every woman he dated after our wedding. Whenever he grew tired of someone and wanted out, I became his favorite excuse. "If you marry him, you'll end up like me," I told them. "Cleaning up his messes, signing divorce papers over and over, and walking away with nothing." On New Year's Eve, I sat beside another woman he'd abandoned, handing her tissues as she cried. Across the city, Ryland was setting off a fireworks display for his newest girlfriend. As I watched her sob through an entire box of tissues, I saw a younger version of myself. For the first time, I asked Ryland for a divorce. He looked genuinely confused. "We'll be remarried in three days," he said. "Do we really need to go through this again?" I smiled and shook my head. No. Not this time. Ryland, I'm done waiting for you.

After five years of marrying into the Loween City in place of my sister, the Gambling King finally passed away. My son and my ex-husband—at long last—gave me permission to fake my death and return to them. But they laid down three conditions. First: kneel before Vivian Gray, apologize for framing her all those years ago, and surrender my place as Mrs. Hartwell. Second: work as a live-in maid for my own son for five years, and never show up at his school in my former identity as the reigning queen of the nightlife scene—lest I embarrass him. Third: drink an abortifacient to destroy my fertility forever, as recompense for the infertility I once caused Vivian. "My lady, you've endured five whole years just to earn your freedom—how dare they humiliate you like this?" My maid's eyes were red, burning with indignation on my behalf. But I just tipped my head back and swallowed the death-faking pill, letting the servants toss my "corpse" into the overgrown brambles beyond the city limits. Then, from the mud and weeds, I crawled back to the Hartwell mansion—one knee at a time. Day one, I knelt as ordered and signed over custody of my son without a fight. Day three, I locked myself in the storage closet and stopped showing up at school to pick my son up like I used to. I also stopped pestering him to call me "Mom." Even when Vivian—knowing full well I'm terrified of the dark—deliberately trapped me in the basement, I bore it in silence. By the time my ex-husband Nathan Hartwell saw me again, I was barely hanging on. For the first time, a flicker of panic crossed his face as he carried me out of that basement. But my son just sneered. "It's just another stunt to win our sympathy." When he caught the tears welling in Vivian's eyes, Nathan coldly dropped me to the ground. "Always scheming against Vivian with your dirty tricks—aren't you tired of it?" Right then, the system chimed in my ear: [Please proceed to the "disposable ex-wife death node" to complete the story line and return to your original world.] I let out a quiet laugh. "Not tired at all." And with that, I turned and dove straight into the swimming pool beside me.

Marcus Navarro's public image was finally going to be fixed. With his upcoming nuptials to Angelique Mackena, everything was in place but when Angelique abruptly ends their engagement, Marcus finds himself in need of a miracle. And a miracle he receives, his publicist comes up with a solution which includes Marcus marrying his daughter, Diana St Germaine. Except Diana is anything but a miracle. Marrying her will fix up his public image but his personal life is turned up side down by the cheeky and bratty Diana St Germaine.

In a world shielded by ancient walls, seventeen-year-old Raina has spent her life surviving the shadows of a broken home, until the night the walls literally fall. When nightmarish creatures known as the Scourge shatter Millbrook’s centuries-old defenses and slaughter everything in their path, Raina loses her family and barely escapes with her life. Thrust into a shattered world of ash and terror, she joins a ragged band of survivors fleeing to the legendary Stronghold Keep. But safety is an illusion. The Scourge is not mindless—it is organized, intelligent, and building something monstrous. In a pulse-pounding raid against an alien fortress and its growing horrors, Raina must decide if she will merely survive….. or become the spark of humanity’s resistance.

As the only expert in the world capable of rescue dives below 3,000 feet, I received a once-in-a-lifetime salvage contract worth tens of millions of dollars. I had dived in those same waters over a decade ago. My son's research submersible had been damaged on the ocean floor. After his oxygen ran out, he suffocated in the dark. The grief nearly destroyed me. My husband, Griffin Lattimer, held me through it, staying by my side through countless miserable nights. I found out later that he had personally redirected the only rescue vessel capable of reaching the depths our son was at to save his childhood friend's daughter. That girl had merely choked on a mouthful of water in the shallows. I divorced Griffin and threw myself into deep-sea salvage like a woman possessed, diving over and over until I knew the undercurrents of those waters better than I knew my own home. I never wanted another child to die the way mine did. Today brought the same stretch of ocean, the same crushed hull, the same depleted oxygen, and the same impossible odds. When I opened the client's file, I went completely still. I recognized the name and face inside instantly. I would never forget either of them for as long as I lived. I smiled and slid the folder back across the table to my partner. "I can't take this one."

Kaliya Ortiz is the illegitimate daughter of the Reyes family who handles businesses around the country. Treated like a nobody in her own family she grew up to be a quiet woman, always hidden in plain sight. Caleb Cruz is the man behind the DY group that dominated the country’s economy. A known business figure and a bachelor on top of that. Many women attempted to make him theirs but the unmoving Caleb wasn’t easy to seduce. Fate somehow seemed to toy the two and decided to play Cupid. "Will you marry me?” "What can you give me then?" She frowned, seemingly lost in thought and then said, "I can give you money." "I'm not in need of money." "Then a house?" "I already have one." "A beautiful wife." He laughed but wasn't convinced. "That certainly is a good catch but..." he trailed off. "It's tempting but no." The woman stared at him, unsmiling. "Then my body?" His smile didn't fade. "Do you want to give it to me?" An encounter leads them to a tangle of messes and to contracts and maybe… towards love.

My wife was eight months pregnant when she indulged her first love for the ninety-eighth time and let him run our child down with his car. My lawyer wife had promised me she'd bring him to justice, but in court, she suddenly changed her statement. "Mr. Quinn has a serious history of mental illness. His family will discipline him verbally, but he shouldn't be held criminally responsible." After the hearing, she shielded Caleb Quinn as he sobbed in public, then leaned close to my ear and said softly, "I promised you I'd only indulge him one hundred times. Let's just use up one chance. I can't watch him go to prison, can I?" I looked at my wife's flat stomach and felt calmer than I'd ever felt before. Then I nodded. She'd relied on that bet for six years, certain she could do anything. She'd forgotten there was only one chance left.

My fiancé presented two engagement rings—one for me, one for my sister to choose first. The first was a three-carat fancy pink diamond, flown in from Antwerp, the kind that made dealers go quiet. The second was a plain platinum band, standard issue, the sort you buy off the tray as a backup. For the first time in my life, I pointed at the pink diamond. "I'll choose first this time." Dante Moretti ran his hand through my hair, the way you soothe a restless dog. "Eleanor, you know Grace has always been particular. If she can't have the best, she'd rather have nothing. You've never cared about any of this. The other one is fine." I didn't answer. My chest felt hollow. We'd grown up together—his father ran the West Coast territory, mine the East. But in Dante's eyes, I'd always been the second daughter, the one who got what Grace didn't want. Every summer, he'd cut watermelon and bring the first plate to Grace. She'd take the center slice—sweetest, seedless, deepest red. He'd push the rest toward me—the pale pink near the rind. "This part's still good. Just not as sweet." When he bought his first Maserati, Grace picked the front seat—less motion sickness. He gestured at the back. "A little tight, but you can pick either side." Even our love was secondhand. He'd loved Grace first. She chose her academic career over him. So Dante, wounded and restless, came to me. In his world, Grace was always the first choice. I looked at the platinum band and pushed it across the table. "Give them both to Grace. I don't want either."

They said Dragons are a myth and they don't exist in the real world but it's a lie. Dragons are real and they once rule the human empire but humans are more cunning than them. They tell lies to gain their trust until the Heart of Magic, yield with an infinite power was stolen from them. Dragons believe that it's in the hands of a selfish mortal. The Red Dragon, Astra lead the attack. She was pregnant and her whelps will soon come out. As the battle began, Astra has given birth to a white dragon. They are weak and useless. She can't withstand her pride raising a white dragon of her own so she abandons her child in the wilderness. She left her whelp and destroyed every realm on the planet Earth. The war between dragons and humans was in a rage but because the Heart of Magic is in their hands, they won, and the Red Dragon lost the war. As Dragons became instincts, there was only one who survived and he was Danym, the rabbit slayer, the last prince of the Dragoness Kingdom. He has a gift of magic to be able to blend in the human society. He has one objective, to find the lost gem of all Dragons, the Heart of Magic. On his journey, he met Princess Amira of the Labyrinth Kingdom. She was blind but cunning. She's a wise warrior and a good hunter. These two will soon discover what secrets lie within them. Will Amira still helped him even he had an opposite belief from her, to the King and her people? Will her love for him prevail? Let's follow their journey to find the Heart of Magic and see the world where Dragons exist.

Leonardo de ricci is the strongest vampire king alive, who is fighting for his kind against werewolves from centuries. Born with the power of seeing future, he knows his soulmate who will be the last witch alive on earth will help him to gain victory. But Aurora Rossi wants nothing to do with the magical world she was born in. All she wants is to live a normal life, but little did she know it isn’t possible for a witch who was born to lead vampires towards victory in darkness. How could Leonardo bring his soulmate to the world she despise? How could he save his queen from the werewolves before the time comes where she will save his whole kind with a biggest sacrifice of her life? Will Leonardo let her help him after knowing the cost his soulmate will be paying by helping him to win the war?   Lets get into their fantasy world to join them in their highs and lows living every moment with them.   THIS IS BOOK #1 OF SERIES DE RICCI