Pulitzer Award

My seven-year-old daughter stole my carefully crafted The Mystical Bracelet, just to help my husband's childhood friend win an award at the Milaney Jewelry Exhibition. I exposed her in front of everyone, but my husband accused me of falsely accusing her. ''You're just a country woman. How could you possibly make such an expensive piece like The Mystical Bracelet?'' The daughter I had cherished for years looked at me with contempt. ''You're so cruel, not even close to Ms. Elaine in any way.'' They let countless malicious words drown me, and in the process, all my feelings for them—the father and daughter—were completely erased. I left without hesitation, my heart calm and unshaken. From then on, there was no more Mrs. Shaw in Capital City—only Becca, the Pearl Diver.

I set fire to my painting in front of the entire academy. Thunderous applause erupts from the crowd as everyone thinks it's some kind of performance art. Unlike them, Willow Laurent is distraught. She rushes up and grabs my hand, questioning in a shrill voice, "Cassidy Seymour, have you gone mad? This is your only chance to prove yourself!" I shake her hand off me coldly. My only chance? No… What she means is that it's her chance. In my past life, I created this masterpiece with all my heart and soul. But she stole it from me and submitted it as her entry first. Whether it was the composition, the colors, or even my original dot-stippling technique… She replicated every detail flawlessly. Then, she won the National Young Artists Gold Award, signed with a top gallery, and became a rising star. And what about me? I was condemned as a shameless plagiarist. Insults and curses gradually drowned me. "You shouldn't be an artist!" "Plagiarists are scum! They should just die!" Her fans stormed into my studio, smashed my art supplies, and broke my right hand. As I saw no end to the hell that I was living in, I jumped down from the top floor of my studio. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the very day she first accuses me of plagiarism.

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Ivy Sinclaire was born powerful—Heiress to House of Valemont and Manhattan royalty. Power doesn’t stop betrayal from crawling into her life—all cloaked in the form of her husband and her closest friend/ legal counsel. On the night she receives her Woman of Year award in global business, she walks into her office and finds Harry between Vivienne’s legs on her Italian marble desk—the same one she had closed multi-million deals on. The same night, her car crashes in a fiery wreck, and she’s declared dead, but alas! Ivy isn’t dead. She is saved by the one man who’s always wanted her and her nemesis. Chase Sterling. An arrogant billionaire and philanthropist in a tailored suit. A man who’s watched Ivy from the shadows for years. Keeping his distance, waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and be her hero. “They tried to kill you and they almost succeeded,” Chase scoffs, adjusting his cufflinks. “I shouldn’t have trusted them,” Ivy wipes the tears streaming down her cheeks violently. “So what now?” She looks him dead in the eye. “I’ll give you 30% of House of Valemont. In return, you help me destroy them.” Reborn as Victoria St. James, Ivy returns to New York—unrecognizable, vengeful, and dangerous. With Chase at her side, she sets the stage for a merciless takedown, but as their dark alliance deepens into something twisted and magnetic, the question remains: who’s really in control? Because Chase didn’t just save her… He remade her, and he has no intention of letting her go.

My grandfather is a nationally renowned inheritor of an intangible cultural heritage. Today, I'm supposed to attend a grand ceremony as his rightful successor. However, when I arrive, I see my father's adoptive daughter already standing on the stage. She's dressed to the nines. She holds an award and is giving a thank-you speech, looking moved. In the past, I would've left without saying anything or speaking up for myself. Too bad for her that I'd been reborn. The discrepancy between our statuses is so large that we're basically from different worlds. Yet she has the nerve to claim to be my grandfather's successor and put on a show with what is supposed to be my family's.

I was working overtime at the mall on New Year's Eve, only to witness my boyfriend proposing to the broke student, whose scholarship was funded by my family, on the biggest screen in the place. I was about to step forward and confront him when she, with tears in her eyes, accepted the proposal. "Being confessed to in my family’s own estate… is so romantic and meaningful. Thank you for loving me so wholeheartedly for five years." As soon as those words left her mouth, the two embraced, sharing a deep kiss amidst the cheering crowd. They even won the "Best Couple" award for the night. I didn’t cry or make a scene. Instead, I volunteered to present them with their prize. I couldn’t wait to see what fate had in store for two pieces of trash standing together.

After eight years of marriage, my husband ignored my protests and brought his so-called cancer-stricken first love into our home. “You heartless woman! You don’t have an ounce of compassion! You’re not even worth a single strand of Luna’s hair!” Even my son chimed in, shouting that if I didn’t let Luna Miller in, he wouldn’t acknowledge me as his mother. That was it. I was done. I divorced him and accepted an invitation to return to the design world—back to the top where I belonged. But then they saw the forged cancer diagnosis. And suddenly, the tears came. “Baby, I was tricked! It was always you—I’ve only ever loved you!” “Mom, don’t leave me! I’m your only child!” I didn’t even look at them. Who let these crazy dogs in? They’re in my way—I’ve got an award to accept.

The day my brother, Chester Rodney, came to the orphanage to take me home, my boyfriend Dominic Huxley looked at me coldly and said, "If you choose to acknowledge your birth family, we're over." I knew he had his pride—he could never accept the difference in our social standing. So, for him, I turned my back on the family I had yearned for my whole life. In the decades that followed, I toiled without complaint, saving every cent to help him rise to success. By the time I was not yet fifty, overwork had worn me down. Lying on my deathbed, my breathing shallow and weak, I watched Dominic on television. He was now an acclaimed scientist, just awarded the nation's highest research honor. Tears welled in his eyes as he thanked another woman. "All these years," he said, "I never felt worthy of Alicia. But now, maybe I can use this award as the prologue to a love I've owed her for decades." The "Alicia" he spoke of was the woman mistakenly switched with me at birth—the false heiress the Rodney family raised as their own. The camera zoomed out. Alicia Rodney stood radiant, graceful, and perfectly preserved by years of luxury, blushing as she accepted the trophy. "I waited for you for decades," she said sweetly, "but marriage is still something I'll need to ask my brother about." Chester, who had long taken over the family, looked at her with an indulgent tenderness tinged with something unspoken. "I was adopted by our uncle back then for one reason—to protect Alicia. Making the only princess of the Rodney family happy has always been my life's mission." Only then did I realize—everything I thought I had chosen freely, every sacrifice I made without regret, was nothing but a trap, carefully woven by two men, all for Alicia. The betrayal pierced my heart. I died without peace. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chester came to take me home from the orphanage. I glanced past the two men eyeing me with subtle disdain. Without hesitation, I stepped into the car. "Take me home," I said. This time, I'd send whoever stole my life back to the gutter they slithered from.

My roommate had a peculiar knack for pestering everyone into liking her posts on social media, all so she could collect enough likes to claim some prize or another. It was her way of life—nagging, nudging, and guilting us into clicking that little thumbs-up. One time, the campus beauty queen liked my roommate's ad for a facial mask. Not long after, she was in a horrific car accident. The vehicle caught fire, and her face suffered severe burns, leaving her disfigured beyond recognition. Meanwhile, my roommate seemed to undergo a miraculous transformation, her complexion turning porcelain fair and flawless as though she'd been kissed by the heavens. Then there was the academic prodigy, a shoe-in for graduate school, who liked her tutoring service post. Shortly after, he was exposed for academic fraud, and his once-brilliant reputation was reduced to ashes. Strangely enough, my roommate's research paper suddenly won an award, catapulting her to fame and fortune. And me? I fell into her trap too. I liked her rental agency ad, and before I knew it, my world crumbled. A scandal erupted, revealing that I was the result of a mix-up at birth. It turned out she was the long-lost child of wealth and privilege—a hidden gem cast into the rough, now reclaimed by her rightful family. As for me, I was packed off to the countryside village she had escaped from and forced into a brutal marriage with an old man. My life became a living hell, and eventually, I died there, broken and forgotten. But fate wasn't done with me yet. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day my roommate begged me to like her post in exchange for yet another prize.

Part One:When Jamie Dalton moved into the house her grandparents left her she was just looking to reconnect with her past and settle in familiar surroundings. Digging through the attic for treasures, she found a nearly life-sized statue of a wolf and a very old, very strange book, Legends of the Werewolf. She was shocked when her new neighbor, Mike Volka, introduced himself and the eyes watching her looked just like the wolf in the book. Using the hypnotic power of the shifter, he draws her into his web and they have sex so hot it nearly burns down the house.Part TwoShifter Lia Popescue is desperate to find the book, Legends of the Werewolf, her only clue as to what happened to her pack. Her attempts to recover it bring her into contact with Riley Morgan, a contact that explodes with sexual chemistry. When she loses her heart to the sexy detective, she wonders how he will handle knowing the truth about her.USA Today best-selling and award-winning author Desiree Holt writes everything from romantic suspense and paranormal to erotic. and has been referred to by USA Today as the Nora Roberts of erotic romance, and is a winner of the EPIC E-Book Award, the Holt Medallion and a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice nominee. She has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, USA Today, The (London) Daily Mail, The New Delhi Times and numerous other national and international publications.Wolf Tales is created by Desiree Holt, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.