Where The Crawdads Sing Chase Novels & Stories

On one drunken night, Nora had with a handsome stranger, Austin, who has a lot of baggage that he's dealing with and isn't ready to commit. The results in pregnancy, but before Nora can inform Austin that she’s carrying his baby, she finds out the abominable reason why he doesn't want to commit or have kids. Embittered, she goes away and has her baby boy somewhere far away from him. She lives her life quietly, until five years later, when she runs into Austin at an airport, and her quiet life becomes chaotic once again. Nora wants nothing to do with him, but she has to be cordial with him for her son’s sake … or so she tells herself.

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

He divorced her without hesitation, humiliated her, and erased her from his life. For Elena Vale, losing her marriage to billionaire Adrian Knight was only the beginning of her nightmare. Three years later, she returns stronger, colder, and determined to leave the past behind. But when shocking secrets surrounding her family's deaths begin to surface, Elena discovers that everything she believed was a lie. A hidden witness. A missing message. A powerful enemy willing to kill for the truth. As dangerous secrets pull her deeper into a deadly game, Adrian becomes desperate to protect the woman he once destroyed. But Elena no longer trusts him, and the answers she seeks may expose a conspiracy buried for twenty years. Now, with enemies closing in and her own identity at the center of the mystery, Elena must uncover the truth before it destroys everyone she loves. Because the secret they have been hunting was never hidden in a vault. It was hidden in her.

In the fifth year of raising Nathan Hale, the son of Chelsea Hale and her first love, Lucas Garrison, Nathan drives toward me in his toy car, causing my lower leg bone to break. When the doctor patches me up, I finally think things through. Some children will never recognize me as their guardian no matter how much love and care I devote into raising them. The same goes to the grown-ups. That's why I decide to divorce Chelsea. She's a little annoyed by my request, so she questions me loudly, "All this over an accident? Nate already said that he didn't do it on purpose!" I look at Chelsea calmly. "It's precisely because of that."

There is an unwritten rule among Saphira's elite. If a new lover wants to become acknowledged as a man's official girlfriend, the previous girlfriend must publicly remove the bracelet that symbolizes her status and personally place it on the new woman's wrist. The day Wayne Seyfried brings Ingrid Bacon home, the entire elite circle waits in anticipation to see me cause a scene. I have stayed by Wayne's side loyally for seven years. For the sake of getting that bracelet, I once kneeled in the Seyfrieds' private chapel for three days. I have also taken a stab from a military bayonet for Wayne. Everyone is certain that I would never give up my position willingly. But when Ingrid, who is clad in a custom gown worth millions, shyly extends her hand to me, I do not argue or make a scene. Instead, I calmly remove the bracelet and slip it onto her wrist. Swirling a glass of red wine, Wayne looks at me with eyes full of arrogance and satisfaction. He says, "You finally know your place, Hillary. It's good that you know where you stand." I lower my head and look at my bare wrist without saying a word. Wayne is clueless. He doesn't know that I have recovered all the memories I lost a month ago. I am the long-lost daughter of the Lachlan family, the wealthiest family in Grandor, who has been missing for seven years. In three days, my older brother's private fleet of jets will arrive in Saphira to take me home.

"Call me sir." He demanded."What?" I heard it correct yet asked again to make sure did I hear correct? "Don't your thick head get things at once?" He asked furrowing his eyebrows without moving his gaze from mine. No way I am going to call him sir. Thick head! It's the second time he told that. What does he think of himself?I cleared my throat and spoke. "Firstly, I'm not going to call you sir. I'm not your slave to do so. And secondly, I don't have a thick head." I protested. "Slave? Seeing a word by its abbreviation." He quirked a brow. "Your thick head has a little knowledge in it." This time he inched more close while the corner of his perfect shifted to a smirk. Move back, Mister!"Yes, I do see a word by its meaning," I said, trying not to fall in his gaze. (S.I.R = Slave - I - Remain) He got closer and closer and stooped near my ear while keeping his hands on the table, either side of me. I could feel his brushing against my earlobe when he spoke in a low deep voice. "If you don't, I'll cancel this deal." 'No! I can't let this happen.'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I am either drown into the deep green sea or flew up into the bright blue sky, for sure I was lost in his blue-green eyes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time marched by days into months and months into a year. Everything in my life has changed but one thing remains the same. Years ago I would've never pictured my life the way it is now.

Amelia was arranged to marry the son of her parent's friend in order to tighten the bond of the family. She goes on with the plan and even falls for him, James. Amelia began to notice that James begins to complain about every slight thing Amelia does. He doesn’t appreciate her and he begins to think she’s a liability to him shortly after their marriage, like a few years after. She finds out that her husband was actually having an affair with his ex-girlfriend and instantly she understood why James had been acting up. Isabel goes on with her schemes which were carefully executed, slowly turning James against Amelia. Isabel is very crafty and tricky and has always wanted everything Amelia had but acts like a saint. She always pretends to be sick or something and always wants attention especially when James is around. To Amelia's surprise Isabel takes her scheme to another level by framing her making everybody believe that Amelia tried to hurt her out of jealousy.

What was even more humiliating than discovering her fiancé’s affair was hearing him claim he’d lost interest in her, and that he had gotten another woman pregnant. In the world of adults, it’s never about right or wrong—only about leverage. Heather Jenner couldn’t afford to lose the status she was so close to achieving as a wealthy wife. Let him have his fun, she thought. If he could stray, why shouldn’t she find another man to father her child? And so, she set her sights on his younger brother—the one who outshone him in every way.

On the night of her 18th birthday, Elara is publicly rejected by her fated mate, Alpha Kael, for being "wolfless." Instead of begging, she accepts the rejection with a smile, cuts her ties, and disappears. Five years later, she returns—not as a weak Omega, but as the wealthy CEO of a rival empire and the mother of a powerful pup Kael doesn't know exists. Now, Kael needs her help to save his failing pack, and Elara is ready to make him pay.

During a family gathering, my mother produces a few photos of different men. She asks me which one I want to get into an arranged marriage with. I don't choose Bradley Garvin again in this lifetime. Instead, I pull out a photo of my own and give it to my mother. It's of Terrence Garvin, the Garvin family's true leader. My mother is surprised. I've pursued Bradley for many years, after all. What she doesn't know is that I married him in my past life. However, he rarely came home. I always thought it was because he was too busy. Whenever anyone asked me about it, I took all the blame. I only discovered the truth on our 20th wedding anniversary after accidentally breaking a box he kept locked in his closet. It turned out my sister was the one he'd always loved. He never returned home because he didn't want to see me. Unexpectedly, Bradley loses his mind when I'm about to put a diamond ring on Terrence's finger on our wedding day.