life ain't like the movies

On my twentieth birthday, I had to choose a husband before all of Olympus. Everyone thought I would choose Apollo Olympion, the radiant heir of the sun god and the man I had loved for years. In my last life, I did. Because of me, he gained Zeus’s favor, sacred estates, and the right to rise above every divine heir. But after our marriage, he gave his sunlight to Celeste, the dying flower nymph my mother had taken in. When Demeter drove her away, Apollo blamed me. From then on, he hated me. He humiliated me, broke me, and finally let my sacred medicine become slow poison. I died carrying his child, on the night the spring inside me withered. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on my twentieth birthday. This time, I let them have each other. So before Zeus and every god in the Golden Hall, I chose Cassian Hadeion, the last blood of Hades. The cursed underworld prince everyone mocked. Apollo sneered. “Choosing him just to make me jealous?” I ignored him. Because in my last life, after I died, Cassian was the only one who avenged me. Then Apollo stepped closer and whispered, “Funny. That wasn’t who you chose last time.”

Three days before my marking ceremony, someone set fire to the bridal shop while I was inside trying on my ceremonial dress. Alpha Marcus threw the arsonist into the pack prison, sentencing them to the harshest punishment our laws allowed. I lay in the hospital bed, my body covered in third-degree burns, refusing to wake fully as the reality of my disfigurement sank in. In my semi-conscious state, I heard Marcus speaking with the pack's healing witch. "Alpha, we can still heal her completely with the ancient magic. If we wait any longer, Sarah will bear these scars for life! You just want Miss Rachel to be your Luna at the marking ceremony. This is cruel beyond measure!" "Let her keep the scars. I'll provide for her for the rest of her life, but if she's healed, she'll definitely cause trouble at the marking ceremony." "I promised Rachel that her pup would be welcomed into the pack with full honors. Only when Sarah is completely disfigured will she be grateful enough to raise Rachel's child as her own. The scars are necessary - at least this way, she won't dare mistreat the pup." In the corner of the room, where no one was watching, a tear slid down my burned cheek. So this was the truth. The marking ceremony I'd dreamed of was nothing but a lie. The mate bond I longed for would be my death sentence. If that's how it had to be, I would give him what he wanted.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I was straddling my Mafia husband, Lucian, kissing him deeply. My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my expensive silk dress, searching for the pregnancy test I'd hidden there. I wanted to save the news of my unexpected pregnancy for the end of the evening. Lucian's right-hand man, Marco, asked with a suggestive smile in Italian: "Don, your new little canary, Sophia. How does she taste?" Lucian's mocking laughter vibrated through my chest, sending a chill down my spine. He replied, also in Italian: "Like an unripe peach. Fresh and tender." His hand was still caressing my waist, but his gaze was distant. "Just keep this between us. If my Donna finds out, I'm a dead man." His men chuckled knowingly, raising their glasses and swearing their silence. The warmth in my blood turned to ice, inch by inch. The one thing they didn’t know was that my grandmother was from Sicily, so I understood every word. I forced myself to remain calm, keeping the perfect smile of a Donna fixed in place, but the hand holding my champagne flute trembled. Instead of making a scene, I opened my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days ago for a private international medical research project, and tapped "Accept." In three days, I would disappear from Lucian's world completely.

"Give me another chance." He said in a hoarse voice. His voice was always like music to her ears. She smiled. "Mr. Jones, we're only in a contracted relationship." Her past was left on the day she gave birth to a stillborn and was abandoned in a mental hospital five years ago. While he was only one of the chess pieces in her game.

Shawn Chandler gets transported 500 years into the future where supernatural beings have returned to the world. Countries must now summon spirits to fight in arena battles, and Esca is on the brink of collapse because they've lost touch with their supernatural heritage. As other nations attack and mock them,Shawn steps up: "Time to show them what real Escan terror looks like!"

Riley Miller heads to the bank to withdraw some cash, only to have the ATM swallow her card—thanks to an unhelpful customer service clerk. Her frustration deepens when she discovers that $10,000 has mysteriously vanished from her account. Just when she feels helpless, the malfunctioning ATM suddenly goes haywire… and starts spewing out money like there's no tomorrow.

Vivian Hale transmigrates into a novel. She is assigned one goal—irritate the tyrant emperor badly enough that he puts her out of her misery, collects her hundred million, and goes home. She schemes, she provokes, she causes chaos at every turn. The Emperor just laughs, pulls her closer, and absolutely refuses to cooperate. What she doesn’t know yet is why. Adrian Kingsley has died and been reborn three times, watching her meet the same terrible ending each time, and has spent every subsequent lifetime dismantling the forces that killed her before she even knows they exist. When the truth finally surfaces, he takes her face in his hands, eyes red, and makes her one quiet promise—his life for hers, every time, as many times as it takes. Vivian, who came here to die on purpose, finds herself suddenly and inconveniently unwilling to lose him.

Irina Petrov may look like a nobody in mechanic overalls, but she is actually the ruthless Mafia Queen who rules New York. She comes to her sister Sasha’s wedding hoping to celebrate her happiness, only to watch Sasha get insulted, used, and betrayed by the groom’s family. They thought they were crushing two helpless sisters. But as the Mafia Queen, how far will Irina go to make them pay?

Saddled with her father’s crippling debt, Yvette breaks up with her boyfriend Archer by pretending to sleep with another man. But while chasing her, Archer gets run over by a car and nearly dies. Years later, Yvette is secretly raising Archer’s son, while Archer’s conquered the business world. When their paths cross again, their mutual hatred and repressed love engulf them both like flames…

In this end-world where everyone worships heroes and shuns the beasts, I was thrown out of the shelter like a piece of trash for not being a hero, only to unexpectedly gain the power to decide whether the beasts live or die. So I opened a supply station outside the walls, and by selling the crystal cores found inside the beasts, I mastered the apocalypse and climbed to the peak of life. So what if they're heroes? Even S ranks work for me now!

Teresa Swift erased Jeffrey Rivers's memories after they spent a night together. Then, she returned to Cartale Mountain and gave birth to her daughter Carol Swift. Six years later, Carol went down the mountain to find Teresa a husband. Upon running into Jeffrey, Carol started to call him dad. To Jeffrey's surprise, both this girl and her mom made him feel like he knew them once before.

Frankie, a musical prodigy, sacrificed everything to make his wife Sophie a star, only to be cast aside like a forgotten melody.Betrayed and broken, he died in obscurity—until he awoke twenty years in the past. This time, he'll harness his genius for himself, ascending to heights Sophie could never imagine. As his symphonies dominate the world, she and their kids, who have forgotten him, are left with a haunting question:Was their betrayal worth losing a legend?

Rayna risked her life to be pregnant for her husband Kyle, yet was betrayed by him before her sickbed. Her life was in danger due to Chelsea, Kyle's lover, who wrongly applied anesthetics. Then Kyle gave up saving Rayna's life and shirked responsibility. But Rayna's first love Jeffrey came to save her and revealed Kyle's true color who was later banned in the medical field. After recovery, Rayna married Jeffrey.

Three years ago, Gabriella Kelly unknowingly convinced her husband Ray Chambers to sponsor college student Angela Mitchell's education as a blessing for their future child. Three years later, Angela arrives at Ray’s company for an internship with two friends, but she completely misreads the situation and believes Ray is interested in her romantically. She begins acting like she owns the place at work and shockingly mistakes the pregnant Gabriella for Ray's mistress, even going so far as to cause her miscarriage.

Helen Carter is the daughter of the Cockfighting Sage, the man who mastered cockfighting not to profit from it but to fight gambling itself into submission. He raised her with one absolute rule: never touch the roosters. Then, he was murdered by his own disciple Sean Holt, a man who chose greed over everything he was taught, and ten-year-old Helen barely escaped with her life on the breath her dying father bought her.Years later, her husband's gambling debts drag her back to the one world she swore never to enter. Helen steps back into the ring quietly and dismantles every opponent in her path, one bout at a time, until she is standing across from Sean himself. The final fight isn't just about the debt. It is about her father, about justice, and about burying the man who buried him. She wins, exposes everything, and walks her husband out of the gambling halls with the only wisdom her father ever needed anyone to hear: the longer you play, the more you lose. Not getting into it at all is the only way to win.

Five years after giving up college due to an unexpected pregnancy, Coral Stirling works tirelessly to raise her son, Bran. When powerful businessman Jotham Zane, pressured to have a child, meets Bran—who looks just like him—he signs a father-son agreement. Later, to keep Coral close, Jotham hires her as a maid. Amid jealousy and secrets, love blossoms. And a second test reveals the truth: Coral is his destined one, and Bran his real son.

Eight years ago, Sabrina lost her boyfriend in a car accident. Shortly after, their newborn child was mistakenly declared dead by her father. Determined to keep the bar that witnessed their love, Sabrina poured her heart into running it. Now, eight years later, she meets a man who looks exactly like her deceased boyfriend. Despite their different personalities, both fall for Sabrina. Could he be her ex-boyfriend's twin brother? Was this encounter destined by fate? What will happen next?

In her previous life, Aurora was tormented by her family to death. Now, returned to life ten years prior, she embarks on a ruthless journey to send her cruel adopted sister to prison and make her family beg for forgiveness.