When We First Met

Eight years into marriage, and Fabian's mom finally gave me and my son her stamp of approval. Invited us to spend Christmas in his hometown. My son—Luca--and I were hyped. We picked out a gift for her and hit the road with Fabian. Right as we pulled into the village, Fabian's old friend called—crying, claiming she'd crashed her car. Fabian panicked. Left me and Luca in some random snowy mountain town and sped off. It was pitch black. Snow dumping down. Then Luca screamed. He'd stepped on a trap and dropped into a pit. Blood everywhere. I called Fabian, totally panicked. He goes, "Stella, Roxana's in a wreck. I need to be with her. Stop making everything a competition." Then he hung up. Blocked me. No time to fall apart. I wiped my face, called an ambulance. Too far out. By the time they got there, Luca was already gone. Cold. Broken. Gone. I held him and screamed until my lungs gave out. Meanwhile, Roxana's posting in the social media. All smiles in Fabian's arms. His face soft. Loving. [Highway jam turned into truth or dare. One word—"accident"—and he came flying. So happy.] I exhaled. Tagged Fabian. [Let's get a divorce.] This joke of a marriage should've ended forever ago.

He’s the world’s most elusive billionaire. She’s the shattered woman who swears she was once his fiancée. When Lyra sees Caspian Clearance’s face on the cover of Forbes magazine, the world stops, because that’s Mason, the man who promised her forever and disappeared without a trace but Caspian insists he’s never met her. He has no memory of her… or the life they supposedly shared. How can a man forget the love of his life? Haunted by her pain and driven by a storm of unanswered questions, Caspian digs into the mystery, only to uncover a chilling truth: before he was Caspian, he was Mason… a poor man who vanished after a tragic accident but Mason didn’t die. His body is in a coma. Caspian is his soul in a second chance at life, one with power, wealth, and no memory of a broken-hearted fiancée. Now Caspian stands at a brutal crossroads: Return to the woman who claims his heart belongs to her… Or stay in the life that made him untouchable. Love or legacy. Past or power. The truth could destroy them both and remembering… might be the biggest risk of all.

After eight long years, Alia Morvane was at her happiest when she discovered she was a little over four months away from giving birth to her and Jasper’s child. Everything seemed perfect, and she hoped that her husband’s cold attitude toward her would finally change once their baby arrived. But the dream she held so dearly came crashing down. While crossing the street, Alia was struck by a speeding car—leaving her not only gravely injured but also causing the loss of her unborn child. Devastated and broken, Alia lost the will to live. She thought her story had ended when she died… until she heard what her child told her. “You haven’t been living your best life… but I’ll give you another chance—to change your fate,” he said. Trusting her child’s words, Alia was sent back eight years into the past. This time, she vowed to change everything—herself, her choices, her life, and her destiny.

On the day Yara Cullen was released from prison, it was raining. A chilly wind carried the drizzle, striking her as the media swarmed the prison gates. "Ms. Cullen, in the Crestwood Estate sexual assault case, your client lost the lawsuit and took her own life six months ago. Her mother is demanding accountability. Do you have anything to say?” "Ms. Cullen, your attorney's license has been revoked, and your mentor was forced to retire. What are your thoughts on this?" No matter how the reporters pressed, Yara kept her head down and pushed forward, forcing her way through the crowd. A black G-Wagon was parked by the roadside, where Westley Langston leaned against the car, smoking a cigarette. Beside him, Elena Cullen tugged at his arm. He turned, glancing toward the prison gates.

With a heavy heart, in order to fulfill the wishes of her father who was terminally ill and would not survive long, Clarabelle Aimee decided to join the reality show At the First Time I Meet You in the city where she lived, Sydney. Clarabelle was sure, with the help of love experts, she would find the right man, who would be her life partner. Jordan Gerald, was desperate to join the At the First Time I Meet You event because he wanted to win a bet with his friends. In order to be accepted by the experts, Jordan played a joke about himself in the reality. Meeting for the first time at the altar, Clarabelle was stunned by Jordan. Jordan was fascinated by Clarabelle's beauty. Jordan's sweet attitude during the introduction period in the reality show they participated in, made Clarabelle begin to fall in love with Jordan. Unfortunately, after the event, living a real life, Jordan's cover began to be exposed. Surprise after surprise Clarabelle met and made her heart disappointed again. Stay or separate? Which would Clarabelle and Jordan choose? Was marriage in At the First Time I Meet You just a game?

Nara mendapatkan peran utama dalam sebuah sandiwara. Anehnya, naskah sandiwara itu terasa sangat familiar, seperti menceritakan kembali kejadian-kejadian yang ada dalam hidupnya. Selama latihan, Nara merasa ada yang aneh dengan adegan dan dialog sandiwara tampak berhubungan langsung dengan masa lalunya, yang selama ini dia coba lupakan. Dia mulai merasa seperti hidupnya sedang dipentaskan. Nara mencari tahu lebih dalam dan menemukan bahwa sandiwara ini adalah penggambaran dari kejadian nyata dalam hidupnya, termasuk rahasia keluarga yang disembunyikan. Ada orang-orang di sekitarnya yang terlibat, termasuk Aksara, yang ternyata tahu lebih banyak dari yang seharusnya. Saat malam pementasan, Nara dihadapkan pada pilihan: mengikuti jalannya sandiwara yang akan mengungkap rahasia kelam, atau mengubah alur cerita untuk menghindari kehancuran di dunia nyata.

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Back when I was 20, I supported a girlfriend. I paid for her education and even found the best doctors for her mother, who had cancer. The sweet, brilliant girl stayed with me for four years. However, my family went bankrupt after my parents died. I even injured my eyes and broke my legs. I watched her have a heart-to-heart talk with her childhood friend, tears in her eyes. I left without a word, and she never sought me out. Years later, I saw her again while picking up trash outside a hotel. She had become a wealthy CEO and was about to marry her childhood sweetheart. Her gaze at me was cold and indifferent. I bitterly asked, "Do you still hate me?" Yet, with tears streaming down her face, she replied, "Yes… I wish you were dead."

After I studied and lived in Descensio for five years, I finally graduated and was ready to return to my home country to take over my dad's company. When I arrived at the Sullivan Group building, I took a picture and posted it on my Instagram story with the caption. 'Since you're the man I love most, I'm here to see you immediately after graduation.' Yet, a woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped me as soon as I arrived at the company's lobby. "It's her! She's the hussy! She had seduced my husband back in high school. Now that my husband has become the director, she shamelessly showed up here to flirt with him. So, I want you girls to beat her up. I'll take the blame if anything happens." While the woman was cooking up a story about me seducing Marcus Lane, a director of Sullivan Group, others around simply looked on coldly and judged me. She slashed my limited-edition bag to pieces and smashed the expensive seal I wanted to give my dad. "You're just a gold digger wearing and buying fake luxury goods. It's just a few hundred dollars. I can still afford to pay you." However, little did she know that everything I had was real. Even if she and her director husband worked for the rest of their lives, they would never be able to afford to pay for the damages.