Who Wrote 'Cold Mountain' And Why?

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.

For one perfect month, we were trapped in a snow covered town, and I believed my arranged husband finally chose me, that he finally saw me for who I am. Three years later, I learned the harsh reality that the snow never trapped us. He was the one that did. The story he sold to me was all his. Then, the woman he once loved with his life returned ...and with her were secrets that could destroy all of us. But Damon Hayes isn’t the master player. He wasn't the only one who kept the truth buried deep for years. Because I was never just his quiet, and convenient wife. I was more than a doctor who married him for duty. And when this marriage finally collapses as it would soon, it won’t be me begging to be chosen. It will be him begging not to lose me.

Eighteen-year-old Winter Devereaux has always felt like an outsider in a world that refuses to understand her. As her birthday approaches, strange revelations begin to surface—her hidden identity masking her true nature and an icy prophecy linked to her destiny. Drawn north by whispers of secrets, she steps into a mysterious, frost-covered realm where shadows communicate and the air is thick with magic. There, she encounters the enigmatic Aaron Windermere, whose true intentions are shrouded in mystery. Together, they explore a landscape filled with concealed truths and lurking dangers, awakening feelings Winter never anticipated. Will they unravel the secrets before darkness consumes everything? Join Winter on an alluring journey where reality blurs and the line between friend and foe shifts.

We got caught in a blizzard—me, my fiancé Melvin Dunn, a few of his colleagues, including Sally Blom. Middle of the night, I woke up shaking. My heavy-duty sleeping bag—the one built for minus forty—was gone. In its place? A flimsy summer quilt. Sally was curled up in my bag, fast asleep in Melvin's arms. I shoved him hard. "Why is she in my sleeping bag?" He pulled me aside, whispering, "Keep your voice down. Sally's kinda fragile—she's about to catch a cold. You're strong. You'll be fine." I pointed at my feet, already numb. "So I'm supposed to freeze to death for you two because she's 'fragile'?" He frowned. "God, Peyton, stop being so dramatic. It's just a sleeping bag. Think about the team for once." I laughed, tears slipping down my face. Didn't say another word. Just crawled back into the corner, grabbed the sat phone, and called my brother—Captain of Stormfang Rescue, an elite international search and rescue team. "Hugh, come get me. The coordinates are... Remember—I'm alone."

What if you were held captive by your own family? Emma Rawlins has spent the last year a prisoner. The months following her mother's death dragged her father into a paranoid spiral of conspiracy theories and doomsday premonitions. Obsessing him, controlling him, they now whisper the end days are finally at hand. And he doesn’t intend to face them alone. Emma finds herself drugged and dragged to a secluded cabin, the last refuge from a society supposedly due to collapse. Their cabin a snowbound fortress, her every move controlled, but even that isn't enough to weather the end of the world. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing Everything she knows is out of reach, lost beyond a haze of white. There is no choice but to play her father's game while she plans her escape. But there is a force far colder than the freezing drifts. Ancient, ravenous, it knows no mercy. And it's already had a taste...