Top 100 Romance Authors Novels & Stories

My mother-in-law’s final wish was simple—she wanted one last trip to Hawaii, to bask in the warmth of the sun before her time ran out. But her son, Vincent, didn’t see it that way. He thought I was manipulating her, using her as an excuse to drag him on a vacation he didn’t want. So, out of spite, he refused to grant her dying wish. I begged him. Pleaded. Swallowed my pride and all the hurt his accusations brought. After relentless persuasion, he finally relented. I thought, at last, I could give Lucy the happiness she deserved. But on the day we were set to leave, Vincent was nowhere to be found. And that same day, Lucy suffered a heart attack. She passed away with only me by her side—never getting to feel the warmth of the sun on her skin one last time. And then I saw it. A picture. Vincent, tagged at a luxury resort with his ex. The caption from her read: Thank you for abandoning your job to take me on this trip. You’re the best. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even confront him. I just packed my bags and left. And this time? Vincent found out about the truth and begged me to stay.

At 20, I became known for two things. First, I weighed over 200 pounds, yet I still ended up dating Christian Fairmont, the coldest and most unattainable man in our circle. Second, I turned down Christian's proposal, changed my name, left the country, and became the one woman no one dared mention around him—the forbidden, unattainable love he could never let go. For the next five years, Christian shut himself away in a church and refused to see anyone. Just when everyone thought he was about to become a priest, he suddenly announced his engagement. He made such a spectacle of it that even I heard about it all the way in Goldridge. That alone showed how much he valued his bride-to-be. I booked the first flight home that same night. Everyone who saw me reacted the same way. First, they stared at how completely I had changed, how much weight I had lost, how I looked like a different person. Then they sighed. "Juliana, you came back too late." Even Christian looked at me with cold, distant eyes. "When you walked away and left me behind, did you ever think that five years later, you'd regret it?" Regret? I shook my head. "I don't regret it." I was already married and had a child.

After Lily turned six, I dragged her through ninety-nine DNA tests. I even pulled her out of school. Quit my job too. Every day, another hospital, another test. The house? Total chaos. And every single report said the same thing—biologically related. By the hundredth test, Wesley snapped. He yanked Lily behind him. "Lily came out of you. How could she not be yours? If you keep this up, we're done." He pulled out the divorce papers. Lily's face crumpled. She sobbed so hard she could barely breathe. "Mom, you said I was your most precious baby. Don't you want me anymore?" "You were under a lot of stress after giving birth. It turned into depression. Let's see a doctor," Wesley's mom said, wiping her eyes. I didn't say a word. I ripped the papers to shreds, yanked Lily out from behind him. "One more test. Once we get the report, you can divorce me if you still want to." The report came back. No one said a word.

For seven years, Elena Vale loved her husband quietly. She waited through missed anniversaries, cold conversations, public humiliation, and the endless shadow of the woman he could never forget. Everyone called her lucky to be married to Adrian Laurent, the untouchable billionaire whose name opened every door in the city. But they never saw what happened behind closed doors. The silence. The loneliness. The way he looked through her instead of at her. Until one night, something inside Elena finally broke. Not loudly. Not dramatically. She simply stopped waiting. And that was when Adrian began noticing everything. The untouched side of the bed. The missing messages. The absence of the woman who had loved him more faithfully than anyone ever had. But the more Elena pulled away, the more dangerous Adrian became. Because for the first time in years, he was terrified. Terrified that the only woman who had ever truly belonged to him no longer wanted to stay. And by the time he realized what he was losing… someone else had already noticed her too.

Every anniversary, Mark had some twisted surprise for me. Our tenth? He strutted into the ballroom holding hands with an escort wearing straight up lingerie. "Jenna, she's cold. Hand over your dress." Then, like that wasn't sick enough: "And the lingerie. She likes your vibe." I clutched my collar, trying to keep it together. He didn't care—just yanked it open. "Cut the act. Your dad sold you to me, remember? That slutty look you used to give me—I still see it." Everyone stared, waiting for me to break. So I did the one thing I could. "I want a divorce." Again. Mark just laughed and chucked a stack of photos on the table—me, covered in marks, curled in bed, a total mess. "You say that every year. And every year, you're back in my bed. Think your mom keeps that hospital spot if these get out?"

It started with revenge. It turned into obsession. It might just become love. Lillian never meant to fall for her boss. Especially not after one reckless night, a steamy mistake she hoped to forget. But when Nathaniel Caldwell offers her a promotion, she realizes two things: 1. He remembers. 2. He’s not letting her go. He’s charming and calculating. She’s guarded and vengeful. They’re both broken, but they might be perfect for each other. Until secrets explode and Lillian finds out she was just a pawn... or was she the one holding the strings all along? Perhaps a plan to finding love after hours?

Alpha Fabian's first reaction to learning I was his fated mate? Rejection. But drunk at the bonfire festival, he couldn't fight the pull of fate. He marked me. Marking a rejected mate came with a price. His power weakened. Forced into a bond with me, he despised me. For two years, I bled for him. I did 100 impossible things, just hoping for a single glance. I snuck into forbidden lands for rare herbs. I negotiated with enemy packs. I fought on the front lines for him in pack wars, always coming back covered in scars. But the one he truly loved was my adopted sister, Gloria. Even my own parents, the pack's Beta, hated me. I was their lost daughter, raised by rogues for fifteen years. But they only had eyes for their perfect, obedient adopted girl. Then, on my 100th task, I nearly died in the Valley of Shadows. When I woke up, I had amnesia. I was done chasing a cold mate and a family's love I'd never have. And when I finally walked away, Fabian discovered the truth. It was never me who couldn't live without him. It was always him.

On the day that I returned to the country, Lola Lawson, the one who was once the love of my life for ten years, sent me a picture of a baby. She told me to think of a name and meet her at the city hall to register the baby, as she had prepared a welcome-home gift for me. So, I rushed over with bags full of baby supplies. But when I arrived, she and her girlfriends were bent over with ridicule and laughter. "I told you! Even though he was gone for a year, he's still a loyal lapdog! Just a wave of my hand and he'd even be willing to raise someone else's kid for me!" She sized me up with mocking amusement. "Kevin Sheraton. How could you still be this naive? Just one joke and you come running?" They laughed without any restraint, calling me names and hurling insults, saying I'd do anything for Lola. But when I walked past them and took a number to register my own child's birth, and later wrapped my arm around my wife as the three of us took a family portrait, Lola's eyes were completely reddened with tears.

My best friend, Mila Clarke, falsely accused my father and my family for betraying the pack and killing the warriors. I kneeled before my husband, Alpha Leon Black, and begged him to have faith in my father. But he merely gazed at me coldly no matter how hoarse I've gone from crying. Even my own pup, Lucas Black, berated me. "I feel ashamed of you and your family! You're not worthy to become my mother!" Later on, I got cast out to the barren plains surrounding the border. Six years later, Leon and Lucas want to take me home. But I already have a new pup, a new mate, and a new home here.

My mate, Kane Blackwood, was the most feared Alpha in the Northlands. For three years, he treated me like something that belonged to him. He would drag me into his arms on the stone steps after moon rituals, pin me against the wall in Blackthorn Keep’s long corridors, and bite the mark on the back of my neck beside the patrol trails in the border woods, as if he needed everyone to remember exactly whose Luna I was. I used to think that was his way of loving me. Rough. Possessive. Lacking tenderness. But love, all the same. Until one night, I stopped outside the council hall and heard an elder say in a furious voice, “Those charcoal sketches on the black market were released by your people, weren’t they? Every one of them is of you and Elena in bed. She has become a joke across the pack. Do you even understand what you’ve done?” There was a brief silence. Then Kane said, coldly, “She is the Luna the council chose for me. She is not the woman I wanted.” I stood frozen outside the door. All those years, I thought his roughness meant he loved me too fiercely to be gentle. But it was never love. It was humiliation. Punishment for taking the place of the woman he actually wanted. I lowered my eyes to the moonstone bracelet on my wrist, the one he had clasped there the day our mating contract was sealed. If that was all I had ever been to him, then I would leave.