London The Novel Novels & Stories

ANTHONY’S POV Christmas morning in London felt different. New York Christmases were all glass and steel and noise—a city trying to out-sparkle itself. But London was softer. Grey skies, damp air, breath in little clouds. The townhouse woke up slowly. Donna was the first one to stir, of course. She tiptoed into our room at some ungodly hour, climbed right between us, and went back to sleep with her cold feet pressed into my ribs.

As she stepped off the plane in London, she couldn't contain her excitement for the adventures that awaited her. Luna's first stop was the bustling city of London. She marveled at the iconic landmarks that lined the city's skyline – the majestic Tower Bridge, the historic Tower of London, and the magnificent Buckingham Palace. Luna immersed herself in the vibrant atmosphere of the city, strolling through the charming streets of Notting Hill, browsing the eclectic markets of Camden Town, and indulging in traditional English tea at a quaint café in Covent Garden.

My first day in London was cold enough to be forgotten. The weather was horrible, and my legs were shaking like a pair of noodles. Things in London are so different from my hometown. Everyone is from top to bottom and no one stays still, while there are so many lights around the city, that sometimes I am blinded by them. Before this change in my life, I lived in a town called Bunbury, a town where nothing at all ever happens. So I was very lucky to be sent to cold London.

London was a fresh start. I pulled out my phone to distract myself. Scrolled through emails I’d already read. Checked my bank account balance. I looked at photos of my new apartment in Notting Hill that I’d never actually seen in person. I tried to imagine myself there. Happy. Settled. Free. The gate area started filling up with other passengers. Families with small children. Business travelers in suits. Couples holding hands. Everyone going to London for their own reasons. None of them running from a destroyed marriage and a secret pregnancy. Just me. Always just me.

London feels like home Vanessa POV The flight to London had been long, but Liam pressed his forehead against the plane window for almost the entire flight, wide-eyed at the sight of green below us. Fields and tiny villages spread like storybook pages, so different from New York’s noise and high rise buildings. The body guards, Harris and Cole came along, they were the only people from Edward that came along with us. Even though I hesitated, I felt it was smart they came along with us since Jules had made me even more popular on the internet.

“You’ve done enough for us, Mackenzie. I’m not even done paying you back for the last time. Lola needed a new procedure and I was out of options. I didn’t want to bother you anymore.” Mackenzie lets out a huff. “Girl, I have the mind to slap that pretty face of yours into next week.” One thing you need to know about my best friend, she’s very big on tough love. I met her three months after we escaped Zakari. With the wealth and influence the Von Hale family commands in London, I knew Lola and I would’ve never been safe there. So I brought us to NewYork the last of my savings, hoping my aunt would accommodate us.

ADRIAN ​The office was a tomb of glass and shadows, an obsidian cathedral perched high above the rain-slicked streets of London. Outside, the city was a blur of grey stone and red buses, the Shard piercing through the fog like a jagged needle. Inside, there was only the low, clinical thrum of the air filtration and the heavy, expensive scent of bourbon and old smoke.

Abigail I didn’t hear the library door open. Curled in the wide armchair by the window, a thick blanket tucked over my legs and a mug of lukewarm tea long forgotten on the little table beside me, I was too deep in the roaring chaos of 1920s London to notice anything else. The novel I’d found, The Blood of Mayfair, was a fever dream of a book with gangsters in bowler hats and singers with too much rouge and too many secrets. I had stumbled across the book purely by chance this afternoon while scanning a high corner shelf. What began as idle curiosity turned into a feverish need to unravel the killer’s identity before the protagonist, a fashion journalist moonlighting as a private investigator

I woke up to snow. Not the aggressive, traffic-halting snow of a New York winter the particular London kind, which fell quietly and without drama and settled on the rooftops and the garden and the cobblestones of the street below in a thin, clean layer that made everything look briefly unfinished. Like the city was in the middle of being painted and someone had added white before the other colours had fully dried. I stood at the bedroom window in the early morning quiet and looked at it.

London had turned colder—proper winter now, the kind that bit at your knuckles and made your breath hang in white clouds. Adeyemi had stayed longer than she planned. No new shoots. No urgent flights back to Dubai. Just the strange comfort of a city that didn’t expect anything from her.