Jean Val Jean

Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

On the day I came of age, my grandfather, Wilson Saddler, laid out photos of the most eligible bachelors from elite families in the capital, asking me to choose one for an arranged marriage. Without hesitation, I chose the eldest son of the Sullivan family, Ethan Sullivan. Everyone present was stunned. After all, everyone in our circle knew that I, Sabrina Saddler, eldest daughter of the powerful Saddler family, had always liked Aaron Johansen, the young heir of the Johansen family. Ever since I was little, I’d followed Aaron around, declaring I would marry him when I grew up. In my previous life, I did marry Aaron as I wished. But after the wedding, he told me he had always loved my younger sister, Rachel Saddler, and would remain a virgin for her. He made me sleep alone for three months. When my father found out, he married Rachel off to the son of a business partner. Aaron thought I was the one who meddled and forced Rachel to leave. From then on, he stayed out every night, indulging in nightlife, sometimes even flaunting women in front of me. In the end, I was pushed into traffic by Rachel and Aaron, and I died at an intersection. Given a second chance at life, I decided to stay far away from him. I gave him and Rachel my blessing. I never expected that at my engagement party with Ethan, he would completely lose control and try to crash the wedding.

“But you said you could help me,” I frowned the despair I tried to hide now showing. “And I still can,” He said now standing inches from me. “The terms have just changed a little.” A little….that was an understatement. “All you have to do is give yourself to me angel,” He whispered caressing my cheek. “and everything in this world will be at your feet, Lucas included.” “For just a year.” Evangeline Hale had the perfect life that everyone envied until it got shuttered after finding out that her husband had been cheating on her, she wants nothing to do with him but when he threatens her, she looks for confront in other things one of them being having sex with a random stranger. Little does she know the stranger is Theodore Duke, the man that’s meant to save her and her husband’s companies from bankruptcy. When they meet again a week later, Theodore makes and offer she can’t refuse, he’ll ensure that her husband grants her the divorce she wants without any repercussions or complications, but there’s a small price to pay, Evangeline must give herself to him, become his girlfriend and sex slave for one year.

She runs into a man's private room as she's being chased down by someone, and she becomes his cure. After a night of passion, she stabs the man in the chest without hesitation before fleeing. Unexpectedly, the man becomes addicted to her and chases her all the way to Jipsfort. He pulls all sorts of tricks to lure her into his trap of lust. "What is it about me that attracts you so, Xavier?" Quinn Jowell asks. Xavier Patterson answers, "Your beautiful eyes, dainty nose, slender waist, and the way you look underneath me…" "You just want to get into my pants. Let's break up." He pulls her into his arms and seals her lips with his. "Over my dead body. Don't even dream about breaking up with me in your next lifetime, let alone this one." Everyone says that Xavier, the heir of the Patterson family, isn't interested in women. Quinn, whose legs are trembling, looks at Xavier while he lies in bed, looking sated. She can't help but think everyone is blind. Xavier is nothing but a monster who can never get his fill of her!

As far as Hendrix Freeman remembers, Noelle Swanson has always been a bore and a buzzkill. It's only after the divorce that he realizes she's gentle, tender, and alluring. But when he can't stop himself from gravitating toward her, she smiles and tells him, "You've been disqualified from my life, Mr. Freeman."

On the night that was meant to bind them forever, Avelyn Cross was handed divorce papers instead of a vow. Married to billionaire tycoon Cassian Blackridge in what she believed was a marriage of growing love, Avelyn discovers the truth too late she was never his choice. She was a substitute, a convenient bride filling space until the woman who owned his heart returned. Humiliated in her wedding dress and discarded before the night could end, Avelyn signs the divorce and disappears from Cassian’s world without tears, pleas, or explanations. What Cassian never expects is the silence she leaves behind. As Avelyn rebuilds her life from the ashes of betrayal, she sheds the identity of a disposable wife and rises into a woman of power, independence, and quiet fire. The fragile girl Cassian once ignored becomes someone the world cannot overlook. Years later, fate forces their paths to cross again. Cassian, now haunted by regret and haunted by the emptiness her absence carved into his life, realizes too late that the woman he discarded was the only one who ever truly loved him. But Avelyn has learned the cost of loving without being chosen and she is no longer willing to pay it. When buried secrets surface, past lies unravel, and an unexpected truth binds them once more, Cassian must confront the consequences of his cruelty and fight not just for forgiveness but for a second chance he may not deserve. In a world of power, pride, and broken promises, Divorced on Our Wedding Night is a slow-burn story of betrayal, transformation, and redemption where love must survive regret, and forgiveness must be earned, not begged for.