9 stories
If I Can't Have You
Orla, a junior associate lawyer, gets drugged by a man who works at her firm, and she doesn't know who it is. He's obsessed with her.
Tender Mercies
“Grace. That word that finally meant something again. Mercy. Favor. Good will.” Fed up with play kink, Grace Warner moves to an island that embraces erotic slavery to be with a man she met online.
Contention
When associate attorney Kara Hayes wakes up in a hospital bed on Saturday night, the last thing she wants to hear from detectives is that she’s possibly a victim of assault. That, and they think she's a prostitute. All Kara knows is that she's not a victim. She pushes the very notion away into a mental box with all her other bad memories that she doesn’t care to entertain. Only, this dark memory that she doesn’t recall won’t let her be. When she’s put on a high-profile case with one of the named partners at her firm, their opposing counsel throws her life off-balance. He looks at Kara like he knows a dirty secret and she doesn’t understand why. That is, until he corners her in a bar alone later that night and tries to buy her silence with a smirk on his perfect face. This is not a love story. Kara doesn’t believe in love and a man like Nicholas Havenwood-Calais is the worst sort of self-harm she can imagine. What he wants is far worse.
The Beautiful and Damned
Set in New York City, the novel's plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation" while excessively partying at the dawn of the hedonistic Jazz Age.
Maid Maleen
"Maid Maleen" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, number 198. It is Aarne–Thompson type 870, "The Princess Confined in the Mound."
The Topeka School
Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting “lost boys” to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart―who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient―into the social scene, to disastrous effect.
The Beguiled
CorporalJohn McBurney is an injured Union soldier who finds himself on the run as a deserter during the Civil War. He seeks refuge at an all-female Southern boarding school where the teachers and students seem more than willing to help. Soon, sexual tensions lead to dangerous rivalries.
The House of the Scorpion
To most people around him, Matt is not a boy, but a beast. A room full of chicken litter with roaches for friends and old chicken bones for toys is considered good enough for him. But for El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium—a strip of poppy fields lying between the U.S. and what was once called Mexico—Matt is a guarantee of eternal life. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself for Matt is himself. They share identical DNA.
The Glass Spare
Wil Heidle, the only daughter of the king of the world’s wealthiest nation, has grown up in the shadows. Kept hidden from the world in order to serve as a spy for her father—whose obsession with building his empire is causing a war—Wil wants nothing more than to explore the world beyond her kingdom, if only her father would give her the chance. Until one night Wil is attacked, and she discovers a dangerous secret. Her touch turns people into gemstone. At first Wil is horrified—but as she tests its limits, she’s drawn more and more to the strange and volatile ability. When it leads to tragedy, Wil is forced to face the destructive power within her and finally leave her home to seek the truth and a cure. But finding the key to her redemption puts her in the path of a cursed prince who has his own ideas for what to do with her power. With a world on the brink of war and a power of ultimate destruction, can Wil find a way to help the kingdom that’s turned its back on her, or will she betray her past and her family forever?
