Norton Critical Editions Novels & Stories

Three months before my wedding, I found my fiancé buried deep inside my maid of honor. ​I gave Leo five years of my life. I ironed his shirts, managed his stress, and sacrificed my own dreams to build our perfect future. My reward? Standing in the doorway of our bedroom, listening to him call me "boring" while he ruined our bed with my best friend. ​Shattered, humiliated, and completely alone, I ran out into the freezing, torrential rain with nothing but the clothes on my back. I thought my life was over. I thought I had hit rock bottom. ​Until a massive black umbrella blocked out the storm, and a heavy, expensive suit jacket was draped over my trembling shoulders. ​Alexander. Leo’s incredibly wealthy, terrifyingly ruthless Godfather. ​He is older. Untouchable. The most feared man in the city and the patriarch who controls Leo’s entire inheritance. He is the ultimate forbidden fruit. ​He didn't look at me with pity as I sat bleeding and broken on the pavement. He looked at me with a dark, consuming hunger that made my breath hitch. Kneeling in the wet street, he wiped a tear from my jaw and whispered a promise that would change my life forever: ​"Tell me who did this to you, and I will ruin his life by morning." ​I only wanted a place to dry off. I only wanted a little bit of revenge. I never meant to let him back me against the marble counters of his penthouse. I never meant to crave his rough hands, his possessive growls, or the intoxicating danger of his bed. ​If Leo’s family finds out, it will destroy Alexander’s empire. ​But once the Godfather claims you... there is no going back.

Elara Voss had spent her whole life in the shadows of wealth she didn’t inherit trapped in her father’s empire, dismissed by her stepmother, and humiliated by the man she once loved. On her twenty-sixth birthday, she discovers a shocking truth, her family’s fortune was never hers to claim… because someone else holds the real inheritance a man she’s never met. Determined to reclaim her life, Elara fakes a new identity and enters the glittering world of high society. There, she meets a mysterious, brooding billionaire, Kael Hawthorne, who’s as alluring as he is dangerous. He’s rumored to be ruthless, untouchable, and utterly untamed but Elara has a secret she holds the key to the empire he’s desperate to protect. What begins as a calculated alliance a partnership to outmaneuver her family soon spirals into a web of deception, desire, and betrayal. Every masquerade ball, every whispered secret, every heated glance pulls them closer… and yet, every lie threatens to destroy them both. Elara must decide will she settle for vengeance, or risk everything for love with a man who might be the only one who truly understands her?

Valerie Carter has always admired the Kosarin brothers from a distance. Five powerful, untouchable men who ruled both the business world and every room they walked into. But admiration turns into something far more dangerous when her father trades her freedom to them as collateral for a contract. Now trapped in their mansion, Valerie is forced to navigate a world she was never meant to belong to. Secrets linger behind every door, tension simmers between the brothers, and the line between protection and possession begins to blur. One brother watches too closely. Another keeps his distance. And one… might ruin her completely. As betrayal, desire, and power collide, Valerie must decide whether she is just a pawn in their game, or the one who will change it forever.

RUINED IN SECRET: YES DADDIES is a collection of short romance stories, steeped with deep, visual and vividly described raw moments, deep ecstasy, the highest height of smutty satisfaction, and boldness that defies rules. He once desired her, touched her in ways that made her feel alive, and yet, years later, his orbs held nothing but disgust as he looked at her. Fine. The void would be filled by someone else, her next-door neighbour, the ex she never got over.

She wanted the life. The money. The power. The man. Mara Collins is tired of counting tips and pretending her dreams don’t reach beyond the coffee shop counter. When the bills pile higher than her hope, she decides it’s time to stop waiting for luck—and start creating it. All she needs is one man. One chance. One lie. Her plan is simple: learn how the rich play their games, then beat them at it. With a fake designer dress, a new name, and a heart of steel, she slips into the city’s most exclusive events—until she catches the eye of Adrian Holt, a man who has everything she’s ever wanted. Charming. Ruthless. Obsessively private. Adrian isn’t the kind of man you play with… but Mara’s willing to risk everything to make him hers. But the higher she climbs, the more fragile her lies become. And when Adrian discovers who she truly is, the illusion shatters—leaving behind nothing but betrayal, anger, and obsession… and a love that should never have existed in the first place. Now love becomes a weapon, and every night in his sheets feels like a war between truth and desire.

Ruth’s life shatters on Valentine’s Day when she walks in on her boyfriend in bed with her sister . Heartbroken and humiliated she cried so bitterly,Promising never to love again. Months later, billionaire Leonard Williams cold, powerful, and untouchable is drugged at a business gala and wakes beside a stranger with no memory of the night. The scandal threatens to destroy his empire, and his search for the truth leads him straight to Ruth the quiet woman whose name is tangled in the mystery. But as they dig deeper, it becomes clear they were both set up. Someone wants them ruined… or dead. Bound together by danger, suspicion, and a night neither can remember, Ruth and Leonard are forced into a reluctant alliance that quickly becomes something more. Just as the truth begins to surface, Ruth collapses revealing a secret that change everything. She carrying his child.

#Rebirth #Mystery #thriller #love triangle #humor # Action #drama #betrayal She died at the hands of the two people she trusted most. Now, Rose Hawthorne is back and the world has become a shark tank. Betrayed and murdered by her husband and her best friend, Rose wakes up three years in the past with one goal: revenge. But the timeline she remembered has shifted. This rebirth is different, darker, deadlier, and crawling with new, lethal players she never encountered in her first life. Her obsessed, psychotic ex-husband was only the beginning. As Rose navigates a high stakes world of elite predators and long buried Hamilton bloodline secrets, she finds herself caught in a much darker game. Backed by the powerful Hamilton heir and a circle of unexpected allies, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to rewrite her fate. In a world where the monsters are hungrier than ever, can Rose transform from the victim into the ultimate hunter? Or will the new, dangerous enemies stalking her claim her before she can have her justice?

Three years ago, Elara was rejected by the most feared Alpha alive. Now, she's back with no memory of him, no memory of the child she carries… and a ring on her finger that binds her to another. Orion never expected to see her again, not after what he did, not after what she became. But the mate bond doesn’t die. And this time, it may be the only thing keeping them both alive.

They took everything from me before I was old enough to remember: my name, my family, my life. Raised as the Ashfords’ scapegoat daughter, blamed, beaten, humiliated while my perfect sister shone, I thought I was worthless. Until a masked stranger broke into my father’s study and called me by a name I had forgotten: Celeste. Vincent Torres is everything the Ashfords pretend to be: powerful, untouchable. He says my life with them is a lie. That I was never meant to be theirs. That he can help me take back my name, my inheritance, my future. All I have to do is marry him. A contract. Nothing more. I’ll become the wife my sister always wanted to be. I’ll infiltrate the world that should have been mine. And together, we’ll destroy the family that destroyed me. But somewhere between the contract and the vows, between the lies and the truth, I forgot the most important rule: Never fall for your weapon. Especially when he might be just as broken as I am.

Haunted by her sister Sofia’s murder, marked by the signature black rose of the powerful Moretti crime family, FBI Agent Elena Rossi goes deep undercover as “Lia Moretti.” Her mission: find the killer and burn the organization from within her greatest obstacle: Dante Moretti, the lethally perceptive underboss who sees through her disguise almost immediately. Instead of exposing her, Dante makes her a twisted offer: her secrets become his to control, and in return, he grants her his protection from the rest of the family, for whom discovery means a death sentence. Forced into his trajectory as his personal project, Elena walks on a razor’s edge between her mission and her survival, while Dante’s cold dominance ignites a dangerous, all-consuming passion. As Elena digs for the truth, she finds her sister’s trail leads shockingly close to Dante himself. Her investigation is a minefield of conflicting clues, betraying her badge and her sister’s memory with every moment she spends in his arms. When a black rose appears on her own pillow a direct threat and her FBI handler forces her to betray Dante, her two worlds violently collide. Exposed and hunted by both the mafia and her own agency, Elena and Dante are thrown together as fugitives. In their raw, desperate alliance, they uncover a truth more shattering than either imagined: Sofia’s death was a message in a secret war within the family, and the real killer is the last person Dante ever suspected. To get justice, Elena must help the man she was sent to destroy and wage a brutal war for the soul of his empire.