Is 'Cold Mountain' Based On A True Story?

She married him to save her sister’s life. He married her to save his crown. For two years, Alicia kept her vows and her silence--until the night Edward Valentine asked for an open marriage and stepped back into the orbit of the woman he once called his first love. When her sister collapses and Alicia faces the worst alone, she finally sees the truth: beneath his cold vows, there was never a heart for her at all. But distance cuts deeper than anger. And when the life he built without love starts to crack, Edward learns the cost of the wife he treated like a stranger. Now the man who never begged may have to. If she’s still there to listen.

I had spent years paying for Damian Grant’s infertility in every way a woman could. Doctors, treatments, private clinics, and humiliation I swallowed in silence. Then, against every odd, I finally got pregnant. It was the child the Grant family had been waiting for. The miracle Madam Evelyn Grant had prayed for. The one thing Damian had been told he might never have. On the night before our wedding, I saw a local post climbing the trending list. [Another day of being the only girl who gets under my boss’s skin.] In the video, a young woman smiled sweetly at the camera. [My boss is terrifying to everyone else. Cold eyes, bad temper, the whole package. But today, during a meeting, I secretly stepped on his shoe under the table. He actually smiled at me. Then he texted me and told me to behave.] The comments were full of people swooning. [That has to be love. A man like that only softens for one woman.] [Look closely. There must be some little detail on him that belongs only to you.] I scrolled down and saw the influencer’s reply. It was a photo of a dark silver tie clip pinned right over her chest. [This is the gift he gave me. He said whenever I see it, I should think of him.] I stared at that tie clip for a long time. It was the engagement gift I had spent a month polishing by hand for Damian. And inside it, there was still a tiny heart made from his fingerprint and mine.

Once childhood friends, now reluctant strangers—Lady Clara Valdemont and General Darrell Storm are bound by an arranged marriage meant to unite two feuding houses. Once allies, the Storms and Valdemonts were torn apart by betrayal and bloodshed. Now, the kingdom’s fragile peace rests on the shoulders of a bride and groom who barely speak. As Clara walks down the aisle, memories of the boy who used to tease her and teach her how to fish clash with the man waiting at the altar—stoic, cold, and unreadable. Darrell has not forgotten the past, nor has he forgiven it. Their vows are spoken through clenched teeth, their first kiss a mere brush on the cheek. This is not a love story born of fate—it is one that must fight to be written. In a kingdom of politics, pride, and pain, can two broken hearts learn to beat as one again?

One noble lie. Fifteen years of cold, calculated hate. One moonlit night that changes everything. Savannah Reed is a woman forged in ice. When Grayson Cole, her fated mate, vanished fifteen years ago, he didn't just leave her alone—he left her carrying a pup he’d never see. To survive the shame, Savannah buried her heart, married a man she despised, and let a singular obsession take root: Revenge. Now, the Alpha has returned. Grayson is back to claim his territory and raise the formidable Ridge Hall, but he isn’t the arrogant wolf Savannah remembers. He is a man of jagged edges and haunting silence, watching her from the shadows with a hunger that threatens to melt her icy resolve. Savannah is determined to break him. She wants to see him bleed for every night she spent alone, for the son they lost, and for the life he stole. But as she peels back the layers of his betrayal, she discovers a "noble lie" more devastating than the truth. In the heat of the forge and the darkness of the sacred grove, the line between hatred and desire thins. Grayson is a raging Alpha to the world, but for Savannah, he is a male on his knees, begging for a mercy she isn't sure she can give. He sacrificed everything to protect her once. Now, she’ll have to decide if she can forgive the male who destroyed her world—or if the fire between them will burn the entire pack to the ground.

Miles Clark has forgotten everything about his past. His dreams of a half-frozen woman guarded by a white wolf deep in a forest may be clue to reclaiming his memories, but each night she and her familiar appear more fragile and weak. He knows he must light the fire to save them both and to reclaim his memories.

A blizzard had buried the mountain, turning every road into a death trap. Locals called it Deadman's Pass—seventy-two icy switchbacks with zero room for error. As the only person who had ever made it through without a scratch, I'd just gotten a million-dollar rescue call from beyond the final curve. Ten years ago, I went there once. My seventeen-year-old daughter, Maya, was skydiving with her classmates when a violent air current forced an emergency landing. The rescue came too late. She died there. Later, I learned my husband, Jayden Boone, had ignored Maya's safety. He poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the rescue effort and redirected every team to save his ex's daughter instead. The girl had only sprained her ankle on a hiking trip. The day Maya died, I walked away from my career as a professor and stayed here, living as a broke driver. I risked my life running Deadman's Pass again and again until I knew every turn by heart. In the ten years since, no one else had died on that road. Today, a friend shoved a million-dollar rescue job in front of me and told me to leave right away. I looked at the face in the photo—the one I could never forget. Then I smiled and tossed my keys onto the table. "I can't take this job."