Tate Where The Crawdads Sing Novels & Stories

I sell handmade fortune cookies in the park. Each one costs $10,000, yet every day, people fight to buy them. That’s because what I sell are fertility fortune cookies. Eat one, and you can get pregnant instantly. You can even choose what kind of child you want. Slip in a double-yolk charm, and you’ll have twins. Seal in a perfect test paper, and your child will be a genius. A spayed female dog ate one and ended up pregnant with six puppies. Someone buried a fortune cookie beneath a withered tree, and by the next day, it had burst into full bloom. I sell fortune cookies to both women and men—anyone who wants to get pregnant. I turn no one away. Even animals, if they so much as make a sound, I’ll feed them. Until one day, a young woman, Mara Kessler, who had been standing in line from dawn until dusk, finally stepped forward and timidly said she wanted to buy a fortune cookie. I only took one look at her, then staggered back in terror. "I can’t sell to you. Leave. Now."

Lena’s voice trembled, barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I...I made a mistake.” Grayson’s cold laughter cut through the air. He stepped closer, his towering presence suffocating. “A mistake?” His tone was sharp, dangerous. “Dropping a glass is a mistake. What you did?” He leaned in, his breath brushing her ear. “That was a choice.” Lena flinched, her chest tightening. “I didn’t know...” “You knew exactly what you were doing.” He grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his icy gaze. “And now you’re here, begging for something. Redemption? Love?” His lips curled into a cruel smirk. “Don’t insult me.” “I don’t want anything from you,” she shot back, her voice faltering. Grayson’s soft, mocking laugh made her stomach twist. “You always want something, Lena. What is it now? A second chance to ruin me?” Her heart pounded. The man before her was no longer the one she thought she’d left behind...he was powerful, ruthless, and untouchable. And she feared she’d lost him forever. *** Lena married Grayson for his potential, believing she could manipulate him to secure her family’s fortune. Once the deal was done, she discarded him without remorse. But time has changed everything. Grayson has returned, no longer desperate, but a powerful man who has made it clear he wants nothing to do with her. Regret weighs heavy on Lena, but her reasons for seeking him now remain unclear. Is it guilt? Love? Or something far more dangerous? Grayson’s world is ruthless, offering no room for second chances. Yet, beneath his hardened exterior, a question lingers: Can he forgive her, or will he ensure she pays the ultimate price?

One night destroyed everything Celine believed in. A single sip of wine at her mother-in-law’s party dragged her from laughter into nightmare. The next moment, she woke up in another man’s room. In his bed. When Adam, her supposed husband, walked in, his voice cut sharper than a blade: “What is this?” “Adam, I don’t know how I got here. I swear—” Her mother-in-law had set her up, ready to destroy whatever that connected her and her son. Before Celine could say another word, two police officers stepped in. “Mrs. Celine Brooks, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud and embezzlement.” After her release, divorced and sent away, her now ex mother-in-law discovered she was pregnant. She sent a thug after Celine. She was beaten till she lost the baby. Three years later, Celine returns to afflict ten times the pains they caused her. This is a story of love, betrayal and revenge, best served COLD.

Freya was drunk, heartbroken, and falling apart after discovering she was adopted and that the only family she had ever known was using her. He was warm and solid and she let herself disappear into one night with him. By dawn she was gone with a new name, new life, and no looking back. Then seven years later, she walks into an Alpha's estate pretending to be someone else, desperate for prize money to pay off the debt she took on searching for the baby stolen from her. Across the ballroom floor stood the stranger from that night, who they now called Alpha. He just does not know she is that woman who disappeared before morning seven years ago. And Freya also has no memory of his face at all. Freya is thinking one thing: why does the Alpha’s daughter bear a similar birthmark to her stolen child? But she holds her thought when a mate contract is slammed in front of her.

"You can never run away from me Cristina, never," were his words. And she was ready to prove them wrong. So to save herself from a dog she sold herself to a lion. Cristina DeCarlo, a young actress, was living a life under the clutches of Vincenzo La Russo, a political leader who was anything but a dog. On a fateful night, she broke all his boundaries and ran away only to fall into the hand of a man who was none other than the biggest Mafia in the country. Roman Scuderi, a mafia lord who was hidden in the shadows yet just the initials of his name were enough to shake the world. A man feared by all. But she was ready to make a deal with him as long as he could protect her from Vincenzo. ###Excerpt### "Why did you cage me?" Cristina asked the man who was sitting in front of her, watching her as she stood in the sexy black dress holding the iron bars of the cage she was in. At her words, he stood up and walked up to her. "Because I'm afraid if I don't, you, my little dove will ascend too high in heaven where this devil can't reach you," he replied in his sexy voice and pulled her towards him to share a kiss.

Amanda Smith, who decided to go home early after her contract couldn't be renewed due to the school's financial problem. On getting home, only for her to meet her fiance and her best friend having an intimate section together. She moved out of the apartment she shared with her friend. Eric Adam, a tech billionaire, also a single dad, needs a teacher and a mentor for his son who was on probation in school. What will happen when Amanda teaches and mentors the son and falls in love with him? Will Eric return her feelings or ignore them due to his last relationship with his ex-wife?

My stepmother, Mary, hated me to the bone. All because when I was little, I went to a classmate’s house to play and forgot to close the courtyard gate. Her son ran onto the road and was hit to death by a car. My father loved my younger brother the most. After learning what happened, he was heartbroken. “Were you jealous of your brother? That’s why you deliberately left the gate open?” I desperately explained that I had closed the gate, but Dad didn’t believe me. He locked me in the basement and raised me like a dog for the rest of my life. Until one day, when Dad went on a business trip, Mary didn’t give me any food for three days. Starving, I crawled upstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat. That was when I saw Mary sitting on a man’s lap, saying softly, “If you hadn’t forgotten to close the gate back then, I wouldn’t be living in fear every day of my husband finding out… We’re the ones who killed Ethan.” Only then did I understand that I wasn’t the one who had forgotten to close the gate and caused my brother to run outside, but my stepmother’s lover. Just as I was about to sneak back to the basement, my stepmother noticed me. “What did you hear? No! I can’t let your father find out that I killed our own son!” In a panic, she grabbed me and threw me down the stairs, killing me on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day the car hit my brother. I blinked my innocent, childlike eyes and pointed upstairs, speaking in a soft, baby voice, “Dad, I closed the gate. It was the man in Mom’s bedroom who didn’t!”

ADRIAN'S POV My head was pounding, a dull throb that echoed the frantic beat of my heart. I was hot, too hot, my skin slick with an unfamiliar sweat. I knew it instantly: drugged. One moment I was escorting Aria, basking in the glittering lights and dancing with her in the ballroom at her birthday party. Next, a wine from a waiter, a trip to the bathroom, and then… darkness. I blinked, trying to focus on the blur above me. Damien. My stalker. The man who’d been haunting the edges of my life for weeks, whispering cryptic claims of a shared past I couldn’t recall. He was on top of me, pinning me to the plush velvet of some unfamiliar bed. His eyes, usually so intense and unsettling, were filled with a disturbing mix of guilt and desperation. "I’m sorry, Adrian, I'm so sorry I had to do this, but I can't stand seeing you with her. Watching you rewrite our history... please, remember me. Remember us." He leaned down, his breath hot against my ear. "I promise, I'll cherish you this time." Then, his lips crashed onto mine, a fierce, possessive kiss that stole my breath away. His hands moved over me, desperate and knowing, igniting a fire that both terrified and strangely thrilled me. Maybe it was the drug blurring the lines of reason. Or maybe… just maybe, deep down, my body recognized something my mind couldn’t. It responded to his touch with a shameful eagerness, a desperate need that mirrored his own. All I could do was surrender to the moment, to the heat, to the undeniable connection I felt with this man, Damien, as I returned his kiss with a fervor that shocked us both.

Rejection has never been so hurting especially if it's coming from one's own family. Switched at birth, Sophia only knew her true identity at 15 but that true identity has only brought her a complicated life. Pregnant out of wedlock, her fiance left her to get married to her sister. Lost her baby and got disowned. Sophia has only learnt the hard way of life that she now considered it, the normal way. But she chose her path, to be strong and live for herself and five years later, she returned to the city, saved a little boy and that encounter brought about something different from what Sophia has always known and believed...

Three years ago they got married with love in their hearts and promises on their lips. They were the perfect couple until everything slowly withered away. Aurora would have never imagined that her once loving husband, Adrian, would hand her divorce papers with no reason and walk away without a second thought. Eventually, she had to move on. Three years later, she is wiser, and free. But then Adrian returns, pleading for a chance to make things better, he wants to fix what he broke. Unfortunately, she isn’t the same woman who once waited for him. She was adamant on not letting him draw scars on her stars again, but he was persistent to draw stars by the scars he left. She tells him “the damage is too deep to mend.” He tells her “Don’t tell me it's too deep. Tell me what it'll take to make it right again, because I’d rather die trying to fix us than live without you.”