Pulitzer Prize Finalists Novels & Stories

A hell-recycle world within the modern world, designed for death or near-death individuals. With the greenhouse effect resulting in instability in hell, access to hell becomes restricted, and the game keeps the new souls busy while offering them a second chance to return to their lives before death, depending on their performance. A six-digit cash prize is awarded to the winning participants, with rewards ranging from reversed choices and time manipulation to wealth and more. The 100 Doors Challenge System was designed purposely for this world, to keep the growing audience (already existing souls) entertained. Chosen participants must die beautifully at each door. The fancier and more tragic the death, the higher the views. The story alternates between real-world broadcast control rooms, digital death arenas, and fragmented dreamlike worlds designed from Author Willa’s traumas, fears, and regrets and those of the participating ghosts. 100 Doors: Die Fabulously for the Audience. This story contains graphic adult themes, including explicit sexual content, psychological tension, dark humour, trauma, and scenes of coercion and moral ambiguity. It explores mature, disturbing, and emotionally intense situations within a fantasy-system setting. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

When her father’s gambling debt skyrockets beyond repayment, Zack De Santis the city’s most feared mafia king makes one demand: Emma. No negotiation. No refusal. Zack doesn’t ask; he takes. And no one says no to him. No one! Cold, calculating, and lethally possessive, Zack has one unbreakable rule: never fall in love. Emma is meant to be payment, a possession, nothing more. But Emma isn’t the docile prize he expected. Defiant and sharp-witted despite her fears, she meets his ice with fire, chipping away his carefully built walls around a heart long frozen by betrayal and violence. As their forced arrangement ignites into something dangerously addictive, a rival family closes in, hungry for Zack’s throne and ready to use Emma as the perfect leverage to break him. Now Zack faces the choice he swore he’d never make. To either keep his heart locked away and let the rules stand, or unleash every ounce of his ruthless power to protect the woman who has become his obsession, his weakness, his everything.

I had special luck that would cause others to lose their money. If anyone tried to scam my money from me, they would suffer financial loss. When I was in elementary school, a female classmate stole five dollars from me to buy a snack. The next day, her father suffered a fifty-thousand-dollar loss in his business deal. When I was in high school, my homeroom teacher withheld my prize money. The next day, his wife got into a pyramid scheme, and he lost his house because of it. After I started working, I encountered my extremely snobbish boss, Fiona Anderson. I submitted a claim for five thousand dollars, which I had paid in advance for a company event. However, she refused to approve the claim for three months. As for the rich intern who drove a luxury car, she would immediately approve his claims with a huge smile on her face, even though he would submit fake receipts. I urgently needed to pay my credit card bill, so I went to talk to her. Fiona pointed at me and snorted. “Poor men like you always try to covet the company’s money! “How dare you ask me for money? You must be out of your mind!”

My son, Jasper Cole, won the gold prize in an art competition. When I took off my apron and rushed to the award ceremony, I found that the painting titled 'Mother' was not of me but Maeve Leighton, my husband's secretary. Maeve pretended to be troubled as she told my son, "Your mom will be sad when she sees this painting." However, Jasper was unperturbed. "What does her sadness have to do with me? She's an ordinary-looking and incompetent housewife, always nagging me about what I can and can’t do. She's too strict with me. It's annoying! Maeve, I wish you were my mother. My dad doesn't like my mom at all. He's only happy when he's with you. He's only with my mom because he feels obligated." My heart broke at that moment. Since he no longer wanted me as his mother, it was pointless for me to stay. I called my dad. "Dad, I want to go home. Can you pick me up?" My dad could not believe it. He answered after a long pause, "Of course. I'll come pick up my brilliant daughter in three days."

"What do you want in return for saving my daughter?" Japheth Williams asked blankly. Gilda quickly sprang up, "No. I didn't save her because I wanted a prize, Angel is just too...." "Then have a nice time," Japheth cuts in and leaves without looking back. Gilda was taken aback; she saved the billionaire's daughter because she happened to be locked in the same storeroom. Now her father thought she did it because she wanted something in return. Getting back home, a wedding proposal was waiting. Her stepmom handed her the proposal, "You either marry him or stop acting." Stop acting? Acting was her biggest passion and dream. Asking her to quit or get married was too much, and so she left home. While roaming on the street, another proposal met her again, and this time it was from Seth Williams, Japheth's brother. "My niece can't get enough of you. Be her nanny, and I'll sponsor your acting career". Frustrated and desperate, she agreed. If taking care of Angel alone was the real job, it would be easier, but she was forced to deal with her crippled father, too. Japheth Williams. The head honcho of the biggest film industry in the country. It started as a business deal, but how did it end? And who is Angel’s real Mum?.

When April Morgan wipes spilled beer from her face at Goody's Bar, she doesn't expect her night to collide with danger-or with Diablo Romano, a man whose very name sends tremors through the underworld. Dark-suited, merciless, and untouchable, Diablo rules his empire with cold precision... until April's defiance catches his attention. Drawn into his shadowed world, April finds herself torn between fear and fascination. Every glance from Diablo burns deeper than the last, awakening a desire she can't deny-and a peril she can't escape. But behind his deadly control lies a secret war against his own blood: Abel Romano, the brother who betrayed him. As the Rossi Cartel moves to strike and loyalties fracture, April becomes both pawn and prize in a game of vengeance. With her friends Aria, Jammie, and Joe caught in the crossfire, and allies like Brian and Karen concealing dangerous truths, April must decide how far she's willing to fall for the man the world calls a devil. Because once you belong to Diablo Romano, there's no turning back. Will April surrender to the darkness that craves her-or will loving the Mafia King be the one sin she can't survive?

She was once the quiet wife no one respected, married to a man the world called a prize far above her league. He flaunted mistresses, mocked her dignity, and everyone believed she would crawl back even after she dared to file for divorce. But they were wrong. The woman who returned was no longer fragile. She was fire, elegance, and strength incarnate, crushing enemies who tried to sabotage her and rising higher than anyone dared to imagine. When whispers spread that she sought a new father for her daughter, the world’s most powerful men—an acclaimed scientist, a ruthless billionaire, and a top film star, lined up for her favor. Her ex-husband, however, wasn’t ready to let go. He fought for custody, framed her in scandals, and even tried to use their child as a weapon against her. But the more he pushed, the further he fell and the more unstoppable she became. When love finally came knocking again, it wasn’t from grand gestures or empty promises, but from the man who had stood silently by her side, proving loyalty where others offered lies. Now, society bows to the woman they once mocked. And her ex-husband? He can only watch from the shadows as she declares the words that seal his downfall: “Ex-husband, step aside.”

Long ago Legends made flesh collided with the underworld as Dragons and werewolves went to war. In a battle that still rages today, the land was split and dragons took over the business world while werewolves controlled the underbelly and, as the years blended together two names emerged at the top of the shifter foodchain. Ragnar Dalgaard is the last of the pureblood dragonlords. In the business world, his company reigns supreme as it gobbles up the struggling businesses of lesser dragons. Hiding in plain sight amongst the humans, learning from their technology, and adapting their own, Dalgaard Industries is on the cusp of something big. Meanwhile deep in the crime world, Giovanni Lupo is the boogeyman amongst his peers. Sexy and ruthless, Gio and his cutthroat pack rule their world with an iron fist, but the werewolf wants more than slums and backstreets, he wants it all, and no one, neither beast nor human will stop him from getting it. When Charlotte Ren, a beautiful and highly intelligent scientist finds herself lost in the City, a chance encounter with the boogeyman and a job offer from a handsome stranger sets her on a path where old friends and sworn enemies come together in a supernatural clash of the titans, for the chance to win the heart of a human. But is Charlotte willing to let herself be the prize, and who says she has to choose just one of the men fighting for her favor?

At the awards for the Global Jewelry Design Competition, my stepsister Sandra took the grand prize. She used the designs she stole from me. What she didn’t know was the show’s biggest sponsor: Jude Moretti. Godfather of the Moretti family. A bloodthirsty monster scarred in an explosion, a man they say can never have children. And the grand prize? Becoming the Godfather’s bride. That night, Moretti’s men, all in black, delivered a gold-trimmed marriage contract. They were here for the “genius designer.” My fiancé, Marco, panicked. He whisked Sandra off to Vegas to save her. They got married that night. With the deed done, Sandra strutted back in, wearing my silk robe. She flashed the ring on her finger and the hickies all over her neck. “Marco’s mine now,” she purred. “What are you going to do, Odessa? The Godfather’s only giving you a day. If you don’t marry him, the Family will have to appease him. That means sending you to the red-light district. Selling you to the kind of sicko who gets off on broken things.” She was wrong. I had another choice. I found my father and stepmother, both scrambling to deal with the contract. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll marry the Godfather.”

In a shattered world teetering on the brink of extinction, survival is brutal. Werewolves rule the wild, humans cling to scraps, and women are the prize both sides fight to claim and breed. Emily, a survivor with no past, was raised by hidden women. She knows only endurance, not identity. When she ventures out for food, everything changes. Ambushed by men, she is saved and claimed as Luna by Hunter, a powerful Alpha wolf. But the pack doesn’t accept her. Emily is human. Torn between loyalty and power, Hunter makes a gut-wrenching choice. Pressured by his pack, who distrust outsiders and fear a human Luna weakens them, he feels forced to choose Isabella, a wolf with strong allies, as his mate to protect his rule. Cast aside, Emily questions her place, Hunter’s betrayal, and her continued pull toward him. As tensions mount and Hunter's half-brother Kaden seeks the Alpha title, Emily becomes entangled in a game of power and survival. Her past emerges, along with dreams and her strange link to wolves, hinting at a secret lineage that could shift the balance in unexpected ways. In a world where love is not an option and power seals fate… who will she become when her heart and future hang in the balance?