renee carlino before we were strangers

Rachel Sheldon's world was turned upside down when she was drugged and woke up in the bed of Barrett York — the most powerful man in the city. When she discovered she was pregnant, Rachel disappeared from the spotlight, determined to raise the child in secrecy. But on the very day she gave birth, Barrett found her. Fiercely independent, Rachel was unlike any woman Barrett had ever met — and he couldn't stay away. As he launched a relentless pursuit, Rachel's hidden identities were revealed one after another, each more surprising than the last. Drawn to her strength, Barrett began to fall — and so did Rachel. Slowly, she opened her heart to the man she had once tried to escape. What had begun as an accident just might have become forever.

While they slice me apart, I desperately call my brother, Nathan Slade. He finally picks up as my consciousness starts to slip and answers in an annoyed voice, "What now?" "Nathan, help—" I don't get to finish before he cuts me off. "Can't you ever go a day without drama? Gemma's graduation is at the end of the month. Miss it, and I swear I'll kill you!" Then, he hangs up without a second thought. The agonizing pain swallows me whole, and my eyes close for good, tears still trailing down my cheeks. Well, good news, Nathan… You won't have to kill me because I'm already dead.

Luis Earl and his three siblings were born into a poor rural family, where despite their humble existence, they found happiness together. However, tragedy struck when their parents drowned unexpectedly, leaving the already struggling family shattered. At just 10 years old, Luis found himself unable to care for his younger siblings alone. In desperation to ensure their safety, he endured great pain and begged others to take them in, a decision that would separate them for 20 years. Over the next two decades, Luis lost contact with his siblings due to life's changes. Consumed by guilt, regret, and remorse, he blamed himself for their separation and dedicated 20 years to finding them again. Their paths converged once more when Luis's younger sister, Anna, returned as the chairperson of the Earl Group.

Jana was the ultimate admirer of the school heartthrob Zell for three long years. She brought him breakfast, bought him medicine,and was on call 24/7, 365 days a year. On New Year's Eve, after her 1,081st confession was publicly humiliated, she declared "game over" and walked away. It turned out that she was actually the heir to the Carter Group. Three years ago, to win a bet with her childhood friend Zed, Jana had pretended to be a poor girl to pursue Zell. Three years later, with the bet concluded, Jana reclaimed her identity and left Zell. When Zell learned the truth, he was filled with regret. He teamed up with the malicious Wendy to seek revenge at Jana and Zed's wedding, but their plan backfired and they were utterly defeated!

Maggie Duncan transmigrates into a classic revenge novel as the story's nastiest female antagonist, immediately saddled with a system that demands she accumulate hatred levels or face the consequences. Then the system glitches. Every unspoken thought she has broadcasts directly into the minds of her entire family. Her scheming inner monologue—the complaints, the calculations, the bewildered asides—plays live in real time to the people she's supposed to be tormenting. The plot derails immediately. Her three brothers, who were meant to despise her, become fiercely protective. The cold fiance Trent Stevens, scripted to regard her with contempt, starts hovering in ways that aren't contemptuous at all.The Duncan family's tragic ending quietly ceases to be inevitable. Maggie watches her villainy progress bar drain to zero and has no idea how it happened.

Vivian, the bankrupt heiress, walks in on her fiancé and her best friend plotting to pull her father's ventilator plug at their engagement party. While fleeing, she falls into the arms of her fiancé's uncle—Alistair, the "Tyrant of Wall Street." He offers to save her father in exchange for a binding marriage contract. Vivian fights back: she gets her fiancé drunk and ruins his reputation, and sends her best friend to prison. But she mistakenly believes Alistair is the one who killed her mother, and teams up with foreign investors to short his conglomerate. When the truth comes to light—he is the boy who saved her from a fire ten years ago, his back bearing burns that never healed—the two powerhouses join forces. She takes control of the financial empire in the open, while he secretly deploys phantom funds to counterattack. The scumbag fiancé goes bankrupt, the best friend descends into madness, and the mastermind behind it all is left without access to medical care. At the pinnacle of their victory, he kneels and fastens a necklace around her ankle: "I am willing to be your prisoner." She lifts his chin with a smile: "We have been each other's captives all along."

I'm Isa Borgia, the daughter of the most powerful Don in Corvina. My father worries I'll marry the wrong man on a whim, so he arranges for me to be engaged to Luca, the rising heir of the Marino family. It's an arranged marriage, but that doesn't mean I've lost all my say. The very least I can do is choose a ring I genuinely like. So, I go to the mafia auction. When the diamond ring appears as the final jewel of the night, I lift my paddle. Just before the gavel falls, an arrogant voice comes from behind me. "A country bumpkin like you thinks you can compete with me? Do yourself a favor and leave." The auction hall goes quiet for a few seconds. The only sound comes from the camera shutters clicking around the hall. I turn and see a woman in a gold couture gown. Her mouth curves in a casual smile, as if she owns the place. Before I can say a word, the auctioneer rushes to close the bid.
"Sold! Congratulations to Ms. Sofia Lopez for winning the final lot, the Eternal Star!" My brows pull tight, and a hot spike of anger rises in my chest. "You ended the bidding early! Do you even follow the rules here?" Sofia turns around and gives me a once-over, her gaze sharp as a blade. 
"Rules?" She lets out a cold laugh. "Come on. I'm Luca Marino's favorite godsister. Around here, I make the rules!" I can't help but laugh. What a coincidence. So, she's my fiance's godsister. I pull out my phone and call him. "Luca, your godsister just snatched the engagement ring I picked out. How are you going to handle this?"

Five years ago, Su Li and the fugitive Fu Jiuchen shared a whirlwind, passionate night that led to an instant and deep connection. But they were soon separated. Now, five years later, Li has a sickly son and is at her wit's end. Desperate, she decides to pawn the jade pendant Jiuchen had left her. However, fate takes a strange turn when Jiang Ting acquires the pendant and, using it as a key, infiltrates the Fu household pretending to be Li, bringing her son along. In order to raise money for her son's medical treatment, Li takes up a job as a maid in the Fu residence. Unknowingly to Jiuchen, the woman he has been searching for all this time is living right under his nose. Unable to resist his intense attraction, he finds himself drawn to her once more, repeatedly taking what he desires by force...

Eve Snow was once a SWAT team commander and a bomb-disposal heroine. Because her job was dangerous and she didn't want her family to worry, she resigned and became a clerk.Then,she met Felix Jenkins, also from the SWAT team, and they fell in love. Just as they were about to get married, Eve discovered that Felix had a long-term crush, Wanda Schwartz, who liked to act cute. He wanted to marry Eve because she was independent and brave—the complete opposite of Wanda. He hoped this would help him forget Wanda. After finding out the truth, Eve resolutely married Joseph Lutz, a CEO who had been pursuing her. However, she didn't know that Joseph was a hostage she had once saved during a bomb disposal operation.Meanwhile, Felix didn't know that Wanda had used such tricks to fool many men.

Shea had been pressured by her mother to marry her mom's best friend's son. After getting the marriage certificate, she had hardly seen her husband's face before he left. It didn't matter. They had the marriage certificate anyway, and her husband was really that important to her. Soon after, she received a notification about starting her job as a bodyguard in the security department of Lowe Group. Great, she had gotten married, and she even had a job lined up. Shea went to work happily. A year later, when Yancy, the CEO of Lowe Group, returned, Shea had become the CEO's personal bodyguard. Wait a minute! This guy looked familiar. Why did he look like her husband?

Everyone in the Lake clan writes off young Tyler Lake as a cultivationless dead weight, until the day he coolly dissects a monster's weakness in an instant, saving his sister Tania Lake mid-trial. As the family tears itself apart fighting over their late father's sacred Mythic Relic, the rival Baker family seizes the chaos to ally with demon forces and launch an invasion.Cornered, Tyler reveals what he truly is—the reincarnation of the Ghost King aka Andrew West, one of the most fearsome beings the ancient world ever produced. He rallies the human Ghost-Tamers, forges an alliance with the Twin Reapers, and dismantles a conspiracy centuries in the making. When the dust settles, he ascends to the Hell  Realm. But even as he destroys the villains before him, something darker stirs just beyond the edge of sight.

If you refuse to apologize, stay here and reflect on your actions! Feel the pain Agnes went through!" Kenneth was the Alpha. His childhood friend was accidentally locked in a storage unit for three days. To punish me, he locked me in a faulty walk-in freezer. He left me with nothing but a piece of bread the size of my palm before locking the door and leaving.Unbeknownst to him, this walk-in freezer wasn't actually faulty. Not long after he left, the cooling system was suddenly activated. I screamed for help and desperately sought ways to survive. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I clawed at the door, nobody came to my rescue. A week later, he finally showed up outside the freezer. He was expecting an apology from me. But when he opened the freezer's door, all he found was my frozen corpse.

"body of a woman who shares her exact name. In this new life, her father died in battle long ago, and to secure their place within the powerful Calud family, her mother raised her as a boy from birth.As Morgan grows older, she is torn between her longing to reclaim her true identity and the constant fear that discovery would bring death upon both her and her mother. Determined to escape this dangerous double life, she plans to flee with her mother before the truth can be exposed.But her plans are derailed when she catches the attention of Shane Burke, the ruthless and immensely powerful prince of a different royal line in the Aetheria Empire. Taken into his residence against her will, Morgan is forced into a perilous game of wits and survival, where one wrong move could cost her everything.

Overnight, every human being on earth shrinks to the size of a thumbnail. Civilization doesn't so much collapse as become irrelevant. The familiar world is now a jungle of furniture legs and household insects, and survival is a matter of minutes. College student Mason Reid barely makes it through the first day before something inside him unlocks—a system that lets him evolve by consuming living matter, growing stronger with every creature he defeats, and absorbing the abilities of fallen awakeners.He finds an unlikely partner in Evelyn Yates, composed on the surface, fierce underneath. Together, they navigate a miniaturized world full of mutated beasts, corrupted survivors, and a cult that has decided the catastrophe is the birth of something holy. The deeper they push, the clearer it becomes: scattered across this shrunken world are alien crystal cores, and they may be the only way to reverse everything.

Everyone in the Lake clan writes off young Tyler Lake as a cultivationless dead weight, until the day he coolly dissects a monster's weakness in an instant, saving his sister Tania Lake mid-trial. As the family tears itself apart fighting over their late father's sacred Mythic Relic, the rival Baker family seizes the chaos to ally with demon forces and launch an invasion.Cornered, Tyler reveals what he truly is—the reincarnation of the Ghost King aka Andrew West, one of the most fearsome beings the ancient world ever produced. He rallies the human Ghost-Tamers, forges an alliance with the Twin Reapers, and dismantles a conspiracy centuries in the making. When the dust settles, he ascends to the Hell  Realm. But even as he destroys the villains before him, something darker stirs just beyond the edge of sight.

Overnight, every human being on earth shrinks to the size of a thumbnail. Civilization doesn't so much collapse as become irrelevant. The familiar world is now a jungle of furniture legs and household insects, and survival is a matter of minutes. College student Mason Reid barely makes it through the first day before something inside him unlocks—a system that lets him evolve by consuming living matter, growing stronger with every creature he defeats, and absorbing the abilities of fallen awakeners.He finds an unlikely partner in Evelyn Yates, composed on the surface, fierce underneath. Together, they navigate a miniaturized world full of mutated beasts, corrupted survivors, and a cult that has decided the catastrophe is the birth of something holy. The deeper they push, the clearer it becomes: scattered across this shrunken world are alien crystal cores, and they may be the only way to reverse everything.

Vivian Harrington gave everything—her trust, her mother's shares, even her heart—to her charming boyfriend Nathan Ellis. But the moment she signed those papers, Nathan, his father Gideon, her scheming stepmother Monica, and her jealous stepsister Serena betrayed her... and sent her to her death. When she opened her eyes again, she was back—reborn, right before the betrayal. This time, she knows who her enemies are. And she knows who truly loved her. Adrian Chandler—the dangerous underworld king who once avenged her and died for her. He may not believe her love now, but Vivian swears she'll make him hers, even if she has to burn the whole world to do it.

In the 1990s, Trenton Zoller, the director of Windi Factory, was suddenly diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Feeling disheartened by his wife Madelyn's cold violence, Trenton refused the doctor's proposed treatment plan and decided to conceal his illness. He resolved to help the factory undergo reorganizing before losing all memory, ensuring the workers would not lose their jobs. Eventually, he planned to pass away with dignity once his memory faded completely. Misunderstood by his wife and the factory workers, Trenton had to sadly depart as his factory reorganization plan was misconstrued. Madelyn, upon learning the truth, was consumed with remorse, left only with Trenton's ashes. A decade passed in the blink of an eye, until one day Madelyn saw a person in the newspaper who bore an uncanny resemblance to Trenton Zoller...